


No Heroes

by virtueofvice



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Drama, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Power Exchange, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:57:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 25
Words: 48,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4915075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virtueofvice/pseuds/virtueofvice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no heroes in Gotham. A series of encounters, each one-shot chapter standing alone or as part of a larger picture. Canon divergent. </p><p>Companion playlists here: </p><p>http://8tracks.com/virtueofvice/no-heroes</p><p>http://8tracks.com/virtueofvice/friction</p><p>https://8tracks.com/virtueofvice/two-of-a-kind</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tribute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selina must prove her loyalty to the new Don, as Zsasz looks on.

The scene was still set, white pieces on one side, black on the other, crimson bleeding out from the carcass at his feet. Penguin's pale eyes traced over the body without really seeing it - such things had been commonplace under the tutelage of other bosses, the mob believes in stern discipline. But his place at the top, however unsettlingly earned, numbed the tremor of fear he had felt in previous encounters with violent death. There is privilege in triumph. 

Victor had made the transition smoothly, even now holstering his gun; having eagerly done the bidding of a new master. Victor didn't much care who was in power, as long as he was allowed to play - and Penguin had displayed a taste for savagery that Zsasz found unexpectedly satisfying. Victor was an easy decision. Not all of them were. 

"And what shall we do with you, little Cat?" Penguin tilted his head, birdlike; asking politely for a reason not to kill her. 

Selina swallowed; rising to her feet and inching closer to the Don. Penguin himself did not have the power to make her nervous; he was in many ways as much a child as she was - though there was something about him, his tenacity and resilience, that she grudgingly admired. But the stern hired guns on either side of him, as well as Victor's weirdly glimmering gaze on her… That made her nervous. She had been a friend to Fish Mooney, however brief their acquaintance; and friends to Fish were thin on the ground these days. 

"Don Cob-"

"Penguin." He cut her off, with the air of one who regrets the interruption but simply must clarify a point. "My friends call me Penguin. We are friends, aren't we?"

"Sure, of course." She replied, nodding avidly. 

"So tell me, little Cat, what can you bring to our family?" The question was asked pleasantly, but with a sense of resignation - as if the young Don had already decided that Mooney's pet was too feral to be trusted, and was merely waiting for his suspicions to be confirmed. His pale eyes flicked from Selina's face to Victor's hand, on the pistol at his hip; waiting for the order to put her mercifully down. 

"I'm fast," she blurted, speech coming rapidly, "I can climb anything and I know the streets. I'm friends with a cop-"

"Ah, yes; Jim Gordon. I know him quite well." Penguin said tiredly, and raised a hand. "That's enough. Victor-"

"Wait!" Selina yelped the word, furious with herself for the quaver in her tone. Penguin paused, eyeing her. Oiled leather creaked softly in the quiet room as Zsasz shifted impatiently. 

"Boss-"

"Quiet." Penguin snapped, unusually authoritative despite the crack in his voice. "Well?"

Selina bit her lip, shifted her weight from one foot to the other, large green eyes darting to the windows and door, gauging their distance. _No out._ "There's something else I can do." She looked him up and down, gaze almost insolent in its frankness as she took in the details - ruby pin gleaming at his collar, white lips that could lie as easily as breathing, blue hooded eyes that could not lie at all. "Something I don't think anyone else has ever done for you."

The other mobsters in the room straightened, glancing at each other surreptitiously, a low mutter of anticipation occupying the stillness as they awaited their new Don's reaction. Penguin shifted uncomfortably, opening his mouth for several false starts before barking, "Leave us." Unanimously scowling, they turned to leave, single file; a lithe figure in leather bringing up the rear. "Not you, Victor. You stay." The assassin melted into the shadows beside the door as it swung shut, only his eyes, chains, and the barrel of his gun gleaming dully. Penguin pressed his lips together, glaring into his lap for a moment, before turning his attention again to Selina. 

"Explain yourself, little Cat. Please."

"Oh come on, Penguin." She rested her hand on her hip and cocked it to one side, kicking her toes on the Persian rug, avoiding his gaze. Hearing Barbara's voice in her head - _Your appearance can be a weapon. As powerful as any knife or gun._ Well, then. She leaned forward, presenting the lean, nubile hallmarks of late adolescence, playing to her strengths. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

She was all angles and black leather, rowdy bronze curls over a set of cheekbones that could cut glass; round, wide-set green eyes that didn't lie as well as the rest of her - just like his. She had the soft, bee-stung pout of a girl; but her hips were as brief as a boy's; and she acted more like an animal than either, always on the prowl for her next meal. A stray carving out her place in the world with claws and teeth and slinking prowess. He liked it. And curiosity was a dark and powerful lure. 

Penguin could feel Victor's eyes on him like a spotlight, suddenly uncomfortably hot in his tailored tuxedo and seat before the fire. Blackmail, intrigue, the intimate secrets of Gotham's gangster elite - these were things at which he excelled, his element, his raison d'être. Pleasures of the flesh were something he had little time for - something _streng verboten_ in his childhood home, something that had indeed never been offered. It stung, that the girl was correct. Burned under his skin, a slight flush highlighting bloodless cheeks. He swallowed, fighting the creak hidden in the command. "Come here." 

Selina eyed him for a moment, feline debating the answer to her latest master's call, before crossing the space between them and sinking to her knees before his antique mahogany throne. Penguin drew away from her, driven by instinct to pull back from anyone in such close proximity. He heard the click and rough slide of stiff leather as Victor drew his gun, and held up a hand. "No." The assassin's sigh was nearly inaudible, disembodied in the darkness as Selina garnered the Don's full attention. 

"Well?" Selina asked, street-tough tones deliberately softened into the purr that would characterize her in later years. She was so young, skin smooth and golden, a pinch of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Emboldened by the tremble in the hand he raised, she brought up her own hands, scratching blunt nails first down his thighs, then, turning at the wrist, back up. 

Penguin stared down at her, at a loss for words, dizzy-drunk on the privilege of his new position. A man with the keys to the kingdom, hesitating with uncertainty and giddy anxiety before the gilded lock. His eyes flicked to Victor, as if the assassin would have some useful advice to offer in the situation. But Zsasz remained silent, though his eyes gleamed with a predatory patience and his mouth curved in what might have qualified as a smirk. Penguin looked back down at the girl currently curving her fingers and dragging them down his inner thighs. Long fingers clenched tight on the polished wood of the armchair and he drew in a breath, unable to conceal the aching unease on his features. He thrilled to the rush of it, this most visceral manifestation of his newfound power, and yet...

"Show me." He didn't even bother trying to hide the quaver and crack of uncertainty in his voice, it was written all over his face. 

Selina dragged her nails upward again, fingertips tracing patterns on the pinstriped trousers as Penguin uttered a soft, shuddering sigh. From over her shoulder, in the flickering uncertainty of the darkest corner in the room, Selina heard - or imagined - Victor's answering sigh. She bit her lip, blood heating in spite of herself as her Don shared a heated glance with his new pet assassin. 

"Relax," she mumbled; too much a child still to pull off the sensual murmur she'd been aiming for. "I'll take care of everything, Don… Penguin."

Victor's scrutiny and quiet indrawn breath, Selina's claws gentle and teasing, had him half undone already. Penguin shut his eyes, head cradled in the plush armchair as his fingers found unruly curls and submitted to the indulgence of kingship.


	2. Distraction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selina finds herself in a tight spot with Gordon.

As she was prowling uninvited through his apartment, the hand on her arm was not completely unexpected, but Selina still cursed under her breath as she swung to face him. "Jim. Fancy seeing you here."

Gordon glowered down at her, unshaven, wearing yesterday's rumpled suit, and clearly exasperated. "What are you doing here, Selina?"

"It's Cat." She corrected automatically. "I needed a place to crash. Your girlfriend wasn't here." 

He looked irritated, or pained. All higher emotions looked the same on Jim Gordon, an azure-eyed intensity that spoke of a deep well of roiling anger swimming inside him. It was the anger, oddly, that made her trust him - as much as Selina Kyle trusted anyone. "We broke up."

"Then what are _you_ doing here?" She asked, unable to keep the mocking edge from her voice. Barbara, what little she had glimpsed of her, had always seemed to shimmer with polish on the outside - a superficial match for Gordon, who wore his raging uncomplicated heart on his sleeve. The kind of woman that reminded Selina of a cheap paint job - rub it with your thumb a little, pressure and friction, and all the beauty would rub right off and reveal the cheap ugliness underneath. 

But everyone has an opinion. 

"Came to drop off the key." Gordon said, fishing for the key with his free hand and dropping it unceremoniously on the bureau. "And now, you're coming with me." 

She danced back as far as she could, pouting prettily - rogue eyes, pirate smile. "Oh please, you know I'll just get out again."

"We'll see about that." His fingers closed tighter around her wrist and tugged. Rather than resisting, she allowed herself to be pulled into his chest, knocking the wind out of him and running teasing fingertips down over the buttons of his shirt. 

"Come on Jim. I'll make it up to you."

He stared down at her, pupils dilating, her own eyes coming barely to his collarbone. "Excuse me?"

Selina licked her lips, laughing. "Really? Don't tell me you've never thought about it."

Gordon stared at her for a long moment, unable to keep his gaze from dropping to the feline planes of her cheekbones, slender golden neck, black leather and illusory guilelessness. Wide green eyes watching him unblinkingly, waiting for him to make a move. Finally he let her go, taking a step back and pinching thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose. "Come on Selina. You know you don't mean that."

Her voice answered from the threshold of the balcony, where she had backed soundlessly away. "No," she grinned mockingly, "But you thought about it long enough to let me to get away. You're slipping, Jim." She tutted, took two steps back and dropped into open air, chill midmorning rushing past her, adrenaline and freedom. She gripped the bars of the fire escape like a gymnast in freefall and swung easily to the first level, then to the ground. 

Gordon remained standing where she had left him, heart beating harder than he would have cared to admit, wondering where exactly the frayed and faded lines of morality finally snapped.


	3. Dissolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penguin owes Jim another favor. Jim intends to collect.

Gordon was drunk. On another man the expression would have been "staggeringly drunk" - but Gordon was not a man to falter or show belly even with a fifth of cheap whiskey coursing through him like poison. His administration-sanctioned drinking buddy, Bullock, was off elsewhere drowning his sorrows in a locale that was if possible even shadier and untoward than the one in which Gordon found himself. The bar, a miserable yellow-lit dive clinging precariously to the edge of the narrows, was far removed from his usual stomping grounds. He didn't want to see any cops, scurrying rats that they were, scrabbling for scraps and abandoning the sinking ship that was Gotham. So he found himself here, with the cutpurses and streetcorner hookers. He would have found his recent comfortable camaraderie with criminals a troubling thought, if he had felt anything but numb.

Another unsolved homicide, evidence quietly boxed up and deposited in the cold case corner of the filing room. Someone had swept it under the rug, and this time even the most dubious and well-informed of his connections had no hint of the culprit. _Just another day in Gotham._ He recalled Penguin's casual shrug, features arranged in a carefully calculated combination of polite apology and unconcerned acceptance. No one knew the city better than its new de facto Don. Gotham was ugly, rotten from the inside out. On nights like this seemingly unsalvageable. 

Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear. The bar was unfamiliar with the concept of respectability, black-tie formality completely alien to the grimy brass fixtures and stained, warped floorboards. So when a familiar figure in jet black and crisp white limped over the threshold, Gordon's was not the only bleary eye in the room to widen with surprise. 

"Where's your muscle, Oswald?" He asked gruffly, taking another gulp of his whiskey. "Rough part of town to visit without backup. A lot of people are looking to put the hurt on you."

"My relationship with pain is a long and intimate one," Penguin replied, walking in his slow and swaying way to the bar and taking a seat. "Much like my relationship with you, old friend."

Gordon grimaced at the inference. "I'm not your friend."

"Neither is pain, and yet it visits often - and it always takes something from me, and gives me nothing in return." The young Don's tone was pointed, but the pale blue eyes resting calmly on the detective's face were mild, almost affectionate. 

"Right." Gordon muttered. "Well I'm leaving, so whatever favor you've come to collect, it'll have to wait." He tossed a few folded bills on the sticky counter beside his empty glass, and rose to his feet. Pressing a hand to the barroom door and swinging it open, he was only mildly surprised when he heard Penguin's limping gait following behind him. 

He saw the men, waiting in the desultory drizzle of chilly rain, before their target did. If he hadn't, Gotham's newest boss might have been sleeping with the fishes by sunrise. Instead Gordon spun, clamping a hand over Penguin's mouth and dragging him unceremoniously into the wet, shadowed alley behind the bar. He glanced back over his shoulder, watching the men for any sign of interest. They did not appear to have spotted the pair, and he huffed a quick sigh of relief. 

"I'm going to let you go." He muttered quietly to the struggling gangster, the shorter man flush against him as he gripped him tightly to prevent resistance. "Do _not_ scream." He did not add, _"Don't run."_ Such a thing would be more insult than command. Lifting his hand from Penguin's mouth, he took a step back, leaning against the rough brick of the bar's exterior; ignoring the way his clammy skin mourned the warmth of a warm body pressed to his own. 

"Jim," Penguin muttered mildly, tugging his clothes out of disarray. "So forceful. If you wanted to see me alone you had only to ask."

"See those men across the street?" Gordon tilted his jaw, indicating the gunmen more by the intensity of his blue glare than any physical gesture. The men in question were beginning to lose interest, milling about. He could almost see them, weighing their frozen feet and hot dinners waiting at home against the wrath of whoever had paid them to take Penguin out. "They're here to kill you."

"Me?" Penguin looked aghast, as if the idea had somehow not occurred to him.

"Yes, you, you're the little snitch who took out all their bosses." Gordon snarled, words pluming mist into the cold air as he gripped Penguin again and hauled him tight against his chest. Just around the corner, close enough for him to reach out and touch them, the unsuccessful gunmen were muttering dire threats amongst themselves as they trudged home. Knowing he could not run, Gordon held Penguin tight against him, bowing his head into the crook of the smaller man's neck as if he held a barroom beauty. At the mobster's protesting squirm, his fingers bit into black fabric and wiry muscle, and Penguin trembled. "Shh."

The threat passed harmlessly by, disappearing into the hostile rainy darkness. Gordon relaxed his grip on Penguin, straightening his back. Penguin looked up at him, eyes shining, giving Gordon the immediate sense that he had made a big mistake. But whiskey slunk lowly across the terrain of rational thought, dragging his consciousness down, down, down; mingling, for once at peace with, the darkness of Gotham's underbelly. All at once craving prickled over his skin, the animal need for soft hot flesh on a chilly night.

"James." White lips spoke softly, quiver evident in his words. "Cruel, then gallant. I can't seem to pin you down, Detective." 

Gordon raised a hand, a sleepwalker in the cold and dark, seeking warmth. As if he didn't know himself what he was doing, he dragged a calloused thumb over Penguin's lower lip, pulling it into a pout. "Looks like you owe me again, Oswald."

"O-of course, Jim. I am in your debt. Whatever you need-"

The lips on his were rough, tasting of whiskey and grim lust; and the Don who had been an umbrella boy was unable to stifle his whimper. Gordon pulled back, breathing out the harsh command in the humid space between them. "Get on your knees."

"James?" Wide, pale eyes; thin frame quaking in his grip. Gordon bit the inside of his cheek, trading pain for silence. For control. 

It was twisted, forbidden; an abuse of power. But he had been unable to stop the words, unable to stop the way his fists tightened over the lines of Penguin's suit and dragged him down, down, down. 

Penguin went, submission as natural as breathing. He gazed up at his sometime savior, sometime enemy; not entirely surprised or unfamiliar with the shiver of anticipation that raced up his spine. A shiver punctuated, with insistent sharpness, by the complaining of his bad leg as he knelt on the damp concrete. 

Jim saw his wince, the flicker of pain; immediately felt guilt welling up in his throat and coloring his cheeks scarlet. "I didn't think. You don't have to do this…"

Penguin silenced him with a look, and trembling palms sliding up the worn dark denim of his jeans. "I'm used to it. As I said, pain is an old friend to me - like you. And friends return favors."

"Christ," Gordon muttered, the back of his head scraping against frosty brick and mortar. Fingers hard on black wool and thin shoulders; he surrendered - for the night - to the darkness already swallowing the rest of the city.


	4. Respect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penguin is boss now. Jim is expected to pay him the proper respect.

Penguin rested thin fingers on his desk, the cool surface of the polished wood soothing his nerves somewhat. He hadn't wanted to do this. Truly, he hadn't. It was uncouth, distasteful. He preferred to wait for Detective Gordon to seek his company, his advice, his favors. But James had been uncharacteristically avoidant since Gotham's new Don rose to the throne; refusing to come by even to seek a favor, let alone pay his respects. 

And that was simply unacceptable. Penguin flushed, the tips of his ears and pointed beak of a nose red, livid splotches standing out on the alabaster of his cheekbones. Favors to James Gordon frequently went unreturned; kindnesses repaid with cruelty and betrayal. He curled his hands into fists. taking a few deep breaths through his nose to calm himself. When he felt composure settle over him again, liar's facade familiar as an old friend, he gave the order. 

"Butch, Gabe. You can bring him in now." 

Gordon burst - was shoved - unceremoniously through the heavy oak doors and into the office. Oswald steepled long fingers, pressing the tips to his thin mouth and watching with polite interest as the detective, red-faced, spluttered a curse at the muscle who deposited him in the leather chair before the desk and disappeared. Zsasz slipped through the door as it closed and remained, a sinister sentinel lingering between the chair and the door. 

"What's this about, _Penguin_?" Gordon growled, and the mobster blinked slowly, feeling the insult roll through him like the aftershock of a kick to the gut. He brushed it aside, turning icy blue on Gordon's stormy cerulean. The detective was unshaven, tie loose - they appeared to have pulled him in at the end of a very long day. 

"James!" Oswald addressed him finally, gracing him with a grin like sunshine in the dead of winter; fragile, earnest and rare. "How good of you to come and visit at last. It's been a long time. I was hoping you'd come by earlier to offer your congratulations. It would have been polite." He laughed airily, as if it didn't matter, as if it didn't hurt, waving aside the point even as he made it with a hand sketched from hollow bird-bones. "After all, friends celebrate achievements together. And I couldn't have done it without you, Jim, truly I couldn't-"

"Enough, Cobblepot." Gordon snapped, clearly uncomfortable with the other man's effusive manner. "You know I wanted Falcone in that chair." He rose to leave.

Penguin sighed, turning away from the detective so that his narrow features were in profile and Gordon would not see the hurt in his traitor eyes. "I had so hoped you'd be in a better mood, James. Victor."

In a heartbeat the assassin had drawn his pistol and placed the barrel squarely between Gordon's startled, angry eyes.

"What are you playing at?" He snarled, eyeballs rolling like a spooked horse to catch a glimpse of the Don in his peripheral vision. He leaned almost unconsciously back from the gun, spine curving, arms tensing as if he planned to fight. Oswald caught the movement, muscle taut under grey blended wool. 

"I wouldn't, if I were you." He advised, and managed to sound bored though his pulse was hammering. He didn't want to hurt Jim; despite everything, still considered him a friend. Still relished the way his own black heart leapt into his throat when the man appeared. But his ability to reign hinged on this moment, and Penguin had decided long ago that there was nothing he would not sacrifice to have Gotham for his own. "Victor is quite the useful employee. I wouldn't bet against him, Jim. Come here please." He beckoned, turning away from the desk, bracing white hands on his knees. A large ruby, set in silver, gleamed on his right ring finger. 

Zsasz gestured with the gun, strange dark eyes focused on Gordon with an intensity that did not brook argument. Gordon approached Oswald, stopping before the throne; a reluctant petitioner. 

"Kneel."

"I beg your fucking pardon?"

Oswald sighed. "Must you make everything so difficult? Really, a little diplomacy goes a long way. Victor."

Zsasz cocked the pistol, pressing the barrel to Gordon's temple. "Kneel." He suggested mildly.

Gordon glared at Zsasz from the corner of his eye, before turning the glare on Penguin. "This how you're running your business now, Oswald? Bullying cops into paying you homage? I know you won't shoot me."

Oswald looked pained. "Manners are crucial, James. Without rules, without respect, society as we know it would crumble. We would be no better than animals. And I assure you, though it brings me no joy to do so, I will order Victor to pull that trigger. And he will obey me. A-and your blood…" He trailed off, swallowed, eyes shining. Sharp fingers dug punishingly into his bad leg, the shock of pain - nearly dizzying in its intensity - driving back the urge to cry. "And your blood will stain my lovely new office. So, I say again. _Kneel._ Please."

He stared at Gordon, pale eyes imploring, jaw set - teeth clenched, refusing to tremble. Gordon's shoulders tensed, aching to round on Zsasz. His fingers twitched, aching to reach for his own gun. For perhaps the first time in his life, Oswald prayed. He could not say in which direction the desperate plea traveled, echoing out from his consciousness with each erratic beat of his frightened, battered bird heart. 

"I won't." Gordon ground out between gritted teeth.

Oswald sighed, looking down at his lap, unable to hide the tremble in his lip. "Victor."

Zsasz inhaled a sharp breath; as if every nerve in his body had been straining on the precipice, longing for violence as drowning men long for oxygen. Penguin looked away as a loud thud broke the silence. 

A thud… But no gunshot. 

He looked down, eyes wide and almost childlike, lips parted in a quavering gasp. Outside his line of sight, he heard - intuited - Zsasz's quiet curse, the angry clumsy holstering of an unspent pistol. Gordon knelt on the ornate rug, head bowed, hands in fists at his rigid sides. His spine was ramrod straight, but he kept his eyes trained on the patch of floor between Penguin's pointed polished shoes.

"J-James-" It was a moment of breathlessness, a moment of shuddering relief so strong it teetered on the edge of delirium and made him believe… for a moment… _But no._ "I see. A wise decision, detective. Please." He held out his ring, intention clear; ruby glinting dully in the shadow between them, pale fingertips wavering a hairsbreadth from Gordon's lips. 

A long silence passed, the only sound Jim's angry breathing through flared nostrils and Victor's restless shifting in the background. "Isn't it enough?" Gordon growled. "Isn't this enough for you, Oswald?"

"It had to be like this, James." Oswald said, and his voice was genuinely sorrowful, quavering on the edge of some unspeakable emotion. "You could have been my friend, accepted my friendship, and there would have been no need for formalities. But you rejected me… T-that is to say, my friendship." He took a breath, forcing his voice and waiting hand steady again. When he continued, his voice was as cold as Gotham River the morning he'd emerged, baptized in the exhilaration of second chances. How quickly, insidiously, things could change. "You chose to be just another cop, dealing with the mob. Well, James, the mob has traditions. Demands respect. And I am the Don, now. So pay your respects. Please."

Gripping Oswald's slender hand tight enough to bruise, trembling with rage, Gordon pressed hot, hard lips to the Don's ring. Oswald swallowed, fighting the impulse to weep, knowing that thinking back on this moment later he would be impossibly hard. Releasing his hand as if scalded, repulsed, Gordon leapt to his feet and backed away, glance flickering warily to Victor. 

"You're free to go, James." Penguin said tiredly, already shuffling some papers on his desk, preparing for the evening's business. "Don't let me keep you. Oh, and James…" He looked up, to find Gordon staring at him with burning resentment from the doorway. "Do take care."

"Get fucked, Penguin." Gordon snarled, shaking off Gabe's cautionary hand as he swung open the double doors and stormed out of the club.

Hours later, in the dark, a man's breathless panting filled the stifled silence of a bedroom. The sound tapered off to a harsh, stuttering gasp; a low groan, hushed aftermath. After a long moment with only shame and shadow for company, Jim sat up and turned on the light, reaching for a towel. Hating himself. Hating Oswald Cobblepot. Hating everything.


	5. Umbrella

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald does Jim a small favor, and it doesn't cost him anything at all.

Gotham had the kind of climate that made people forget the sun. It would linger, a source of light and heat just out of reach, overcast and ashen nine months out of the year. And it rained. A lot. Fall turning to winter early; bitter sleet in October, flurries by November. 

It was late September. It could be worse. This in mind, Gordon gritted his teeth, tugged the brim of his uniform-issue hat down over his eyes, and held up a gloved hand to the next car in the endlessly honking line of traffic facing him. 

He could have been sitting behind a desk in the warm station, doing paperwork and sipping bad but scalding coffee. He could have been chasing down a perp, sweat standing out on his brow as the furnace of his body burned away the chill. Instead he was stationary in the middle of an intersection, demeaning himself to the outrage of the masses, soaked nearly to the bone beneath an inadequate GCPD raincoat. Gordon prized his integrity above all things, each streak of tarnish costing him dearly on an intimately personal level. But just at that moment, he was wishing he'd traded away just a little more of that shine; rather than deliberately antagonizing the commissioner. Again. He squared his shoulders against a north wind that was picking up, and turned to wave pedestrians across the crosswalk. 

The last pedestrian in the line was a familiar figure, limping past the line of cars, brow turned down in anxiety lest he fail to reach his destination before the flow of traffic resumed once again. Gordon turned a warning glare on the waiting automobiles, making a threatening "stay" gesture with his free hand. When Penguin drew abreast of him on the crosswalk however, rather than continuing to the other side, he stepped off the painted diagonal and into Jim's personal space. He looked up at the taller man, bearing a sturdy black umbrella and a smile. The umbrella he held over Gordon's head, sacrificing a few inches of his own tuxedoed shoulder to the rain in order to spare the detective. 

"James! So nice to see you, regrettable though the circumstances may be." He shifted, obviously uncomfortable; the cold and damp playing havoc with his bad leg. The smile stayed though, long lashes blinking under pointed black bangs that had gathered droplets from beyond the umbrella's reach. Traffic continued, citizens of Gotham doing themselves a service by slowing only a minute amount to peer curiously at the tuxedoed mobster shielding the disgraced traffic cop from the rain. 

Gordon glared down at him, but was unable to summon the expression with its usual degree of stern disapproval. The black expanse of nylon over his head, sparing him from the chilling water torture he had endured for the past several hours, was more of a relief than he cared to admit. And a single friendly face; just one amidst the sea of rain-blurred disinterest or derision behind glossy windshields, made something in his chest suddenly sore. "Oswald. What do you want?"

Penguin considered for a long moment, head tilted to one side as he pondered the question. Gordon waved a line of traffic to a stop, beckoned another one forward, endless motion and noise surrounding their small island of stillness beneath the umbrella. Finally Penguin met his questing gaze, ice blue eyes serious. He shrugged, tuxedo damp, nose and the tips of his ears red from cold. "You looked like you needed a friend."

The insistent honk of a horn jolted Gordon into action, though surprise had caught him up and wanted to immobilize him, wanted to give him the time he needed to stare into Penguin's face and try to discern the lie he knew had to be hiding there. He still had a job to do, much as uncertainty and confusion needled at him, prickling beneath the skin where pale blue eyes watched him. But the mobster remained by his side, quiet, favoring his bad leg but holding the umbrella faithfully until Gordon's shift ended.

In the tiny boxcar diner across the street, traffic resuming a more organic flow in the officer's absence, Penguin shivered in a red vinyl booth, thin hands trembling around a steaming cup of coffee. He was freezing, but he was always freezing. His bad leg was screeching its displeasure, but that was nothing new either. He looked up at Gordon, cheekbones flushed red to match his other extremities, and smiled. "Thank you for the coffee, James."

Gordon grunted noncommittally, stirring a healthy dose of sugar into his own black coffee. He busied himself with his spoon and napkin, baselessly and irrationally certain that if he met that smile he would be lost in it. "You didn't have to stand out there like that. Was the least I could do."

Oswald lifted the mug to his lips, cherishing every bitter sip.


	6. Lesson Learned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor trains Edward in the finer points of human nature.

Victor was a complicated man with simple needs. Intensely focused on his one true passion; he would work willingly for any master that catered to his unique tastes. Fortunately Gotham's new Don had the presence of mind and appreciation for savagery to give Victor freer reign than Falcone ever had. 

He was placed in charge of interrogation and discipline, skills learned in the shadows honed and sharpened till they gleamed in the light. He was provided with anything he required, within reason; and plenty of work to keep idle hands at bay. And, every so often, he was sent a playmate - a bit of fresh meat to be toyed with, or trained. 

Today, he had one of each. 

The worn and tattered flesh, hanging from chains in the basement, could have belonged to anyone - anything. Male or female, young or old, the hallmarks of difference had long since faded into sickly peeling white and raw red. Victor set the scalpel down on the carefully organized steel table, stepping to the side, listening to the last wheezing whines of the plaything melting into concrete with the blood. 

"Well? You wanted to be taught. What have we learned?" He addressed the kneeling figure, looming like a shadow, belt buckle even with soft dark hair. 

"That man, you-"

Bloodied fingers gripped white flesh, clamping over a narrow jaw, slippery rough sliding over clean-shaven pale skin. He tilted the other man's face up, up, revealing a black leather collar with a steel ring. "Don't tell me what you saw. Tell me what you learned."

Spectacles gleamed in the wan stark light of a naked bulb, kneeling man glancing from the remains to the lithe figure and intense stare above him. "Life… is cheap. People are just bags of blood and bone. Only the ability to reason separates them from animals, and if they don't have it… They're empty. Expendable." The gaze hardened, jaw tilting defiantly despite Zsasz's grip on it. "Object lessons."

"Good," Victor murmured, painting crimson fingertips over Edward's lips. Edward quivered, but the defiant light was back, and he opened his mouth, welcoming onto his tongue long rough fingers and the metallic taste of death.


	7. Reverie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald has some impure thoughts while with James in the interrogation room.

Jim's clout at the precinct was negligible, but his detective's badge still bought him an interrogation room. This late at night, the station was almost empty; only a few late reports being resentfully turned in, a tired old janitor and probably Nygma knocking about somewhere down by the morgue. But in the interrogation area, all was quiet. 

More or less.

Metal screeched across the floor as the detective kicked a chair out of the way, bending the smaller man over the sturdy table. Oswald trembled under him, white hands and forearms splayed on brushed steel, desperate for balance in an unbalanced world. Fingers fumbled blindly at what seemed like innumerable buttons and layers of fabric, formal wear that was confusing when visible unfathomable from such an angle. Hot breath puffed against the gangster's naked neck, Jim growling against the shell of his ear as rough hands bared a narrow chest with the sound of ripping fabric. Greedy hands on Oswald's skin burned like embers, sweeping down over his flat, quivering belly to the waistband of his tailored trousers. 

The gangster's lungs, never strong at the best of times, were laboring under the onslaught. Short staccato gasps hitched, broke into a breathy animal keen when Jim thumbed open the button of his trousers. With his free hand, the tall blond gripped the collar of Oswald's tuxedo jacket and dragged it down backwards. It forced Oswald's elbows tighter to his ribs, his thin body bending at a sharper angle over the table. The long white line of his neck beckoned hungry lips like the painted points on a geisha; fragile bird bones in a ridge down his spine. Jim lowered his mouth, nipping bone gently through skin as pale and delicate as cigarette paper, tongue burning a white-hot line from between Oswald's shoulderblades to the hollow beneath his skull. 

" _Jezus Chrystus, pleprz mnie…_ " Oswald whined, lips parted and soft, the manic detached look in his eye that came upon him when his blood thinned and his head spun with some intense fervor. He braced himself against the table and pushed back against the detective, positively squirming when Jim gripped his hipbones and ground into him.

"What was that?" The cop's voice was rough, a rasp in his ear, and for a moment Oswald could not remember having spoken. Then Jim pressed again, more forcefully, startling a yelp from that long, white throat. 

"Fuck me!"

"Excuse me?" Jim's voice came from an unexpected direction, and Oswald blinked. 

The scene rearranged itself into a more familiar picture. The mobster sat behind a steel table, long white hands folded mercifully in his throbbing lap. Grateful for the skill of his tailor, he swallowed and blinked again. Jim stood back slightly from the brushed metal table, posture taken aback. Leaning against the interrogation room door, Harvey snorted into his coffee cup, clearly amused. 

Long hours and a busy mind did not lend themselves well to a stoic facade, and Penguin had ever been of a somewhat high-strung nature, this trait never illustrated more clearly than when in the presence of one detective James Gordon. He had apparently succumbed to a daydream whilst submitting himself to another round of vaguely insulting questions from GCPD's finest. He affected an air of irritation, meeting Jim's eyes for the first time since returning to himself. 

To his surprise, there was something like heat in the gaze - a crackling kinetic energy, a language untranslatable into higher forms. Gordon looked like a hunted animal - or a man who has just been offered on a silver platter some forbidden fruit he had been almost successfully resisting. 

Oswald's lips parted, eyes widening and black pupils expanding and contracting as he searched the blond detective's face. In the background, still nursing his watery vending machine coffee, Harvey raised an eyebrow. Under scrutiny, the young boss became Penguin once again, buttoning himself into the layers of meticulous old-world politeness and the detached mannerisms of the elite class.

"Merely an expression, Detective, no need to get touchy." Almost inaudibly, Harvey snorted again. "It's been a trying day and I see no reason these questions couldn't have been answered from the comfort of my office. The next time the GCPD requires my assistance, I will of course be happy to cooperate - providing you go through the appropriate channels." He gripped the umbrella that had been leaning innocuously against the table, awaiting his hand. "If that will be all?"

He felt Jim's eyes scorching on his back all the way to the precinct door.


	8. Arsonist's Lullabye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James has ended his association with Penguin. Penguin responds the only way he can.

Penguin stood beneath a street lamp in a quiet residential neighborhood, a flurry of activity surrounding the house across the street. The domicile itself was dark, only the bedroom light on, soft and golden. Even from this distance, the scent of gasoline was sharp in his nose, pungent; fumes rising in the chilly night air and giving him a migraine to match the ache behind his ribs. Shadows that belonged to him scurried around the house in the darkness, beckoning to each other. 

_No more favors._

He squared his shoulders, soft black fur brushing his jaw and the back of his neck. It was a cold night, his leg throbbing incessantly. He ignored it, staring at the lit window with turbulent eyes. 

Cops are predictable people. Gordon's usual routine did not allow for much deviance - he managed to schedule his heroics into neatly packaged bundles of time and, when he had a moment to breathe, he could be counted upon to sneak away. To her. 

Penguin understood the value of sanctuary, of having one single person in all the world strong enough to bear the weight of trust. He had thought, for a heartbeat or two, stretching out in thin moments when eyes locked or hands reached out to touch… _but no._ Of course not. 

He had known about the new captain's appointment even before Jim did. His contacts were better. Always astute, he had scented fire and had his mother moved at long last out of the city and to a guarded cottage in the suburbs. In the absence of other, crueler options; she was the only cherished thing he cared to protect. His blind spot.

Gordon had a blind spot too. It was his unflinching faith in the faithless concept of justice; the refusal to believe, despite being corrected time and again, that bad things happen to good people. He believed he was untouchable, because of the badge in his hand and the tenuous grip of his own stubborn integrity. In this case, he was half right. 

The Don's unwavering stare faltered when Zsasz arrived, jogging in near silence, eyes glittering in the orange glow of the sodium arcs. He was restless, eyes wide as he all but danced with impatience, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. 

"He left about twenty minutes ago."

"I know. I saw him."

"She's still in there." Zsasz said, voice low with some barely repressed need that Penguin did not care to overanalyze. 

He studied the house for a long moment, each breath reeking of gasoline; head spinning with fury, and pain, and the beginnings of regret. But it had been too late before he'd even arrived. He turned his back on the scene, leaning heavily on his umbrella as he gave the order over his shoulder. 

"Burn it down."


	9. Contra Mundum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gordon chooses Oswald. Despite everything, he always will.

It's a new day in Gotham.

The new captain was the knight the city had been waiting for; not pristine and shining white but heavy-handed, gruff, sternly anti-political. He had no notion of finesse, of cooperation. 

Gordon thought him a fine man. 

That didn't stop him. 

Gotham being Gotham, no one really commented when Gordon rose quietly from second in command to first. It was becoming, in whispers and cautious looks, common knowledge that the newly minted King of Gotham had a consort. 

This King was an ambitious one. While previous Dons had for the most part been content to sit back and collect, the Penguin was assertive, proactive, expanding his protection racket within his first few months in power. With each block pledging tribute to the mob's guns, the police lost one more opportunity to make their quota, to satisfy the tax payers - or the mayor. 

The thing was, the promise of protection was a genuine one. On the streets under Penguin's notorious umbrella, petty criminals were cleared out wholesale, shuttled to somewhere even less hospitable or nowhere at all. Commerce of all kinds was booming. The homicide rate, if it did not distinctly drop, at least did the GCPD the courtesy of appearing that way - thanks to chains and cement block and the welcoming bosom of Gotham River in many cases. 

It was change - grim, hard, bitter change, muddied and not enough by half. But that was the only kind that came in Gotham. It made it easier, to ignore it. To allow it. To turn, back to the light, lips sealed in hungry promise against searing flesh. To let long, cool hands pull him down into the dark. Gordon changed as Gotham did, but in the opposite direction. 

Oswald, on the other hand, was interested in appearances, a master of compromise. Gordon's purity, his fragile nobility, was what had drawn the mobster's darkness in the first place. His vision for Gotham changed according to Gordon's sensibilities, catering to the terms of their association by ruling with a hand that was, if not any less ruthless, then at least more subtle. Having climbed to his rank on the secrets of bad men, the Penguin was of the opinion that discretion is the better part of everything.

For all that, it is not in the nature of powerful men to shy from scrutiny. There is a certain charisma to be gained in the illusion of invulnerability. Perhaps it started to be obvious when Gordon began wearing black suits to work, as if every day was a funeral. Perhaps it became known when a family elder arrived early for a meeting with the Don and heard, from the office over the club, the police captain's name in an animal howl. 

The arrangement didn't sit well with the scowling toy soldiers on either side. It went against the natural order of things, black and white not in struggling balance, but blended into shades of grey. Neither side stood to benefit from the other while such an alliance stood. It was unpalatable, unacceptable. Such disrespect for the established order leads to mutiny. 

* * *

Thursdays were always the same. For every Thursday Gordon could remember, it had been pissing down rain, the coffee in the precinct could be used to degrease an engine block, and there was a stack of files on his desk that rivaled the library at Alexandria. He scowled, black suit accentuating the stormy grey of his eyes and dull gleam of his badge as he unbuttoned his jacket and sat behind the desk. The desk was in the bullpen where it had always been, the captain's office used for storage and private meetings. A man with many plates to juggle, he preferred to keep his ear as low to the ground as possible.

"Gordon. We have something to say." A cop - burly, strawberry blonde - approached the desk, something like distaste on his coarse features. Gordon regarded him mildly, thunderclouds gathering behind calm eyes. 

"That would be 'captain' to you, O'Neill." He spoke with badly feigned patience, rising to his feet with an athletic grace. "How can I help you?"

"You can stop fucking that little mobster freak, for-" The uniform spit the words like he was disgusted to say them, right up until the moment Jim gripped his ear, twisted, and slammed his head into the surface of the desk. Files scattered everywhere as the cop flailed, but Jim held him fast, a knee in his back, one arm twisted to the breaking point, ear still gripped in his fist. 

"I see!" Gordon announced to the precinct with a smile so artificially cheerful it looked painted on. "There are over a dozen unsolved homicides _so far this week_ and no one is discussing them. No, instead, the topic of the day in the bullpen is _my business._ " He glared around the room, storm in his eyes looking for someone to catch up and cast about like a rag doll. Gripping a fistful of hair with the ear, he slammed O'Neill's head back down on the desk again; cops looking away as the man groaned in pain. "Any further speculation on my personal life can be brought to me directly. I'm very receptive to your criticisms - aren't I receptive, O'Neill?" Another slam for good measure, and he released the cop, shoving him off his desk and breathing hard through his nose as he squared his shoulders and stared the room down. 

No one spoke, the hasty shuffle of papers soon overtaking the silence. 

There was a time when he wouldn't have have gone that far. Would have resorted to conversation before violence. But he now lived in a world where too far was always just barely far enough. 

* * *

On the other side of town, the Penguin was feeling a little strained. 

He'd arranged this meeting as a courtesy, to soothe the ruffled feathers of some of the older families. In truth his influence and political capital was growing so rapidly in newer circles that he hardly needed their support, but still - good business is good business, and fortuna is fickle. 

But the topic of discussion had changed rather abruptly from business when one of the elder gentlemen felt the need to stand and announce to the room exactly what he thought of Oswald's unholy association with a member of GCPD's finest. 

Oswald surveyed him, eyes icy and still, small frame trembling with rage but wrapped in layers of formalwear like armor. The older man stood at the foot of the table, opposite himself, florid-faced and with a filthy slur still dripping from the end of his tongue. 

Gertrude Kapelput's son had never much cared for those who used foul language while in polite company. 

In a moment the man was lifted off his feet and slid down the table like a platter, Gabe and Victor emerging from the corners of the room at a gesture from the Don. Victor drew his pistol, leaping lightly onto the table and keeping one boot in the center of the man's back, gun aimed at the balding pate. Gasping, the elder turned his eyes on Penguin, who had risen to his feet and picked up his umbrella. He leaned over the table as if lining up a billiard's shot, point of the umbrella aligned with the offender's eye. At the push of a button on the curved handle, a thin, needle-sharp blade shot out and pierced through the orbit and into the grey matter beyond. A scream split the silence like tearing cloth. Lethal thing still buried in its target, the Don looked around the room. 

"I find such old-world bigotry extremely tiresome." He announced, voice creaking only a little. "Is there anyone else who would like to comment on my orientation or private life?" Pale eyes were sharp, glaring at each face in turn as he wrenched the umbrella free and cleaned it with an embroidered handkerchief. "Anyone?" 

Silence reigned. He nodded, seating himself once again and returning the umbrella to its position beside him. "Good. Gabriel, see them out. Please." He tapped white fingers on the table, smearing the tip of one with crimson as he absently streaked it across the wood. "Victor, dispose of that." He indicated the body beneath Zsasz with a disdainful glare. 

Victor hopped down, peering at the apparent corpse. "He's still breathing."

"Good." Penguin rejoined tartly. "Dispose of it slowly."

"My pleasure, boss."

* * *

Gordon slammed the door behind himself, hands immediately flying to his tie and ripping it unceremoniously from his person. 

"Long day?" Oswald asked dryly, not looking up from the heavy tome he held in his lap. The book looked old, the worn cover giving no hint as to its contents, and Gordon knew Oswald would never tell. The damn thing could be in English, Polish, German or Russian anyway. 

"One of the guys got mouthy in the bullpen. I had to rough him up a little."

"Hmm, wonder if he liked it." Oswald demurred, turning a page.

Gordon stared, nonplused at his audacity. He knew the disinterest was affected, a ruse - one of Oswald's games. The day Oswald Cobblepot didn't quiver and shine when he walked through the door was the day their association ended. Thus far that day had not come. Something low and warm in Gordon's gut, something precious he kept hidden away from the world, was comforted by the knowledge. 

"I doubt it." Standing before Oswald, he reached out, two fingertips under the other man's chin, tilting his gaze upwards. "Word on the street is you had a pretty busy day too."

At the penetrating stare, ice and thunder, Oswald swallowed and the facade fell. "It was a hasty move. Ill-timed. But it had to be done."

"Did it?" A calloused thumb stroked the narrow jaw, sliding over white skin, delicate bones. 

Pale eyes shone, golden glow of the fireplace erasing the blue till they looked nearly white, staring up at Jim, pupils expanding. "He called us… He…" He looked away, unreadable smile in place again as he swallowed down the ugly feeling. "It doesn't matter. I gave him to Victor, to do what he does best."

Jim could not hide his wince, but held out his hand anyway. "Come on."

"James, I'm reading." 

The blond flipped his palm, holding it upright, facing Oswald. He spread his fingers, as if waiting for slim pale digits to be laced with his own. "Hey." 

Oswald looked at him and took his hand, allowing himself to be pulled unsteadily to his feet. 

"Together as one." Gordon murmured, their fingers curving into a familiar pattern, skin against skin.

"Against all others." Oswald answered, tension draining from his body as Jim pressed kisses beneath his ear and down over fair skin to his collar. He sighed; then, when teeth sank gently into the curve of his neck, whined breathlessly. 

"Take me to bed." The smaller man demanded, insolent and greedy as ever, returning the favor with a nip to Gordon's throat, a line of teasing kisses over his chiseled jaw. 

Gordon eyed the large window behind them, opening to the nocturnal glow of Gotham. He felt defiant, drowning in the dissolution of all his grand plans, yet feeling more bittersweet triumph than anything like regret. A ferocious recklessness overtook him, snarling out of him before he could stop it. "No. Right here."

Oswald froze, drawing back to look him in the eye. "James?"

Jim gripped his hips and held him tighter against himself, desire obvious and aching. "I want them to know it, without a single doubt in their minds. I want them to fucking choke on it."

Oswald quivered in his grasp, eyes wide. No one claimed Oswald Cobblepot, save his sainted mother. When wanted, it was for his usefulness, not the trouble be invariably brought trailing along behind him like a hungry dog. Except Jim. Jim Gordon had brought the dog home, fed it and nurtured it until he had a trained wolf that would attack on command. Oswald looked at him like he'd never seen anything so awe-inspiring in all the world, and Jim kissed him. 

The gangster keened into the kiss, fingers flying down the buttons of the captain's shirt with near-preternatural speed. Buttons were Oswald's strong point. Brute strength was Jim's. The Don's elegant waistcoat and all the layers below it were ripped open, the realization of a long-cherished fantasy pulling a vulgar curse from gasping lips. Jim kissed him again, biting down on another curse, teeth pressed into white flesh as Oswald mewled and his lower lip swelled. 

"Fuck, Jim, _please_ ," He squirmed under heavy hands, using his leverage with his arms wrapped around the taller man to grind forward, seeking some relief.

The tall detective chuckled, thumbs rubbing circles on narrow hips. "In a hurry?"

Oswald huffed impatiently, rolling his eyes. "It's been a long day."

Jim couldn't argue the point. He unbuckled his own belt and shucked his trousers, leaving his shirt open over a bare chest. Removing the sleeves would mean releasing Oswald, and after the day he'd had… 

He moved hands to the silver suspender clips, the tiny black button nearly hidden against fine black wool, drawing the zipper down while Oswald pressed distracted kisses against his bare chest and whimpered in anticipation. When his palm met nothing but hot skin, Gordon groaned. "Commando today?"

"I have good instincts," Oswald shrugged, chuckle moist and open-mouthed over Jim's nipple. He nipped gently, earning himself another groan and a hurried Jim pulling his trousers down - careful over his bad leg - and off. 

Naked from the waist down, a slapdash substitution for naked above, Gordon tangled his fingers in Oswald's unruly black locks, drawing him into a soul-kiss. His free hand slid down the delicate spine, counting each ridge of bone, a poem he knew by heart. He pressed Oswald down into the sofa, following after him, cool fingertips tracing over the definition of his chest as hot breaths puffed against his neck. The gangster squirmed for purchase, desperate for friction. Jim held up a hand between them, raising a brow, and with a little moan Oswald licked it, sliding his tongue over each digit as Jim pumped them slowly into his mouth, then laving gently over the palm. Hand gleaming wet, Jim lowered it to his cock. The head dripping and slick, he teased Oswald's tender flesh, probing gently. The smaller man was more ready than he'd ever had him, but Jim still prolonged the moment for a heartbeat more than was fair, fingertips flickering over quavering nerves, pressing hard only when Oswald cursed his name in three languages. 

Breaths slowed in tandem, held for a suspended moment as Jim was sheathed fully in his lover. He stared down at Oswald as if seeing him for the first time; easily ruffled Penguin flushing red under the scrutiny. 

"What?"

"I just realized I'm in love with you." Jim returned, sounding surprised, the strain of maintaining stillness showing in his voice. 

"I… James?" Oswald whimpered, the name a breathless prayer. _Is this a game?_

Gordon lowered his head and kissed him, all tendresse and sensuality. 

_Please don't hurt me._ Gordon began to move, slow, even; Oswald starting to shake almost immediately, overwhelmed by sensation. Cool fingers pressed into Jim's sides, holding him fiercely, reducing his rhythm to short, hard motions that made Oswald want to howl. His head was spinning, pale blue eyes wide and watching Jim's face, body drawing up tight like a bow but unable to let go.

Jim sensed his tension, bracing his weight on one hand and raising the other to rest lightly over Oswald's heart. He brought his lips to the other man's ear, murmuring the words. "I mean it. I love you." The hand over Oswald's heart slid down his trembling belly to encircle his cock, jerking firmly in time with each thrust. 

The gangster threw his head back, a broken sound escaping him. "Fuck, are you beautiful." Gordon breathed softly, taking in the white line of Oswald's sternum, the elegant column of his throat, the way his hair in the light appeared almost blue, glossy as obsidian. The man writhing beneath him was astonishing in his beauty. And as soon as the praise crossed his lips, Oswald became more beautiful still; falling apart in his hands with a cry, surrender crystalline and complete like shattering glass. His body rocked with a tremor, cock throbbing hard, Jim's fingers coated and slippery as Oswald dissolved into fluttering muscle and a breathless sob. Jim followed after him almost immediately, something about the way Oswald cried out his name pulling every last scorching throb out of him. 

As breathless panting turned to sated silence, Jim rolled them over deftly, allowing Oswald to rest on his chest, stretching out his bad leg. The gangster resisted eye contact, and after a long moment repeated something, the same short phrase, in three languages. 

"Beg pardon, your majesty?" Gordon teased gently. 

"I love you, too." Oswald muttered, tense as if expecting a blow. 

One arm curved around Oswald's thin ribs, fingertips counting the fragile bones. Gordon pulled his hand from where it cradled his own head over the pillow to rest two fingers beneath Oswald's jaw and raise, once again, that pale questioning gaze to his. "Together as one."

The smile that spread over his lover's face was instantaneous and genuine, a masterpiece of relief and adoration. "Against all others."


	10. Cat Scratch Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim and Oswald wind up staking out the same club. An unexpected patron puts on a show.

Oswald finished his drink with some impatience, checking his pocketwatch with a barely concealed sneer. Darkness hid his expression, the table and chaise he'd chosen for himself was free from the stage lighting, swathed almost entirely in shadow. 

_This is what happens when one employs amateurs._ The delivery he was expecting was more than an hour late, and there was little to occupy a man of his tastes in this establishment. 

Across from him, lit with swaying purple and green spotlights from the stage above, a lean figure in a sharp suit lounged in a red velvet armchair. Cropped, ginger-blonde curls peeked from below a violet fedora with an emerald band, and the suit was in the 1920's lounge style, cut from lilac summerweight linen with dark green pinstripes. Alligator boots - likely authentic - peeked out from beneath the cuff of the trousers, tapping off-beat from the bass that throbbed through the club. 

The figure, with shrewd grey eyes and a cruel smirk, was by far the most expensively dressed individual present - save perhaps Oswald himself. Penguin narrowed his eyes at the figure, trying to conjure some memory, a point of reference. The sharp curve of the cheekbone, pointed jaw, seemed familiar somehow…

His attention was divided when a dancer emerged from the back, stopping to curtsey and cut a pose in front of the pinstriped suit. The girl was petite, but lithe and strong, bearing the physique of a gymnast. The dancer was dressed as a court jester, red panties beneath a pleated black skirt that was more suggestion than garment; a small jingle bell attached on each hip, black fishnets cutting slim white thighs into diamond shapes. The top was of black and red argyle, lacy fingerless gloves jingling at the wrist. The violet fedora tilted upward, its wearer clearly interested; and a gloved hand rose, beckoning the dancer to bend closer. Fingers wrapped themselves in one blonde pigtail, tugging; at first gently, then with cruelty. The dancer's painted lips parted in a gasp. Silently observing from his unlit corner, Oswald swallowed. 

The dancer surrendered with little coaxing, purple-clad hands tugging her gently down to rest in the pinstriped lap. Leather gripped grinding hips, fingers splayed and greedy, sliding over the ripe curve of the inner thigh, coaxing the dancer's knees apart. This was in flagrant violation of the no-touching rule employed by virtually all reputable dance clubs. It pointed, even more strongly than the suit had, to money - or something else of value. The VIP room they both enjoyed was off-limits to more pedestrian patrons.

Cold leather rising up over the taut undulating belly and brushing scandalously over the ribs, fingers paused in their exploration of the girl's figure to dig mercilessly into tender flesh, tickling roughly. The girl squeaked and leapt up, only to be gripped by the wrists and dragged back down, straddling the hips of the suit. Throughout all of this, security made no attempt to intervene. Oswald shifted in his seat, fingertips fluttering to the continental cross at his throat as if tempted to unbutton it. He was suddenly entirely too hot. 

In an uncharacteristically bold move, the blonde reached down and seized the hat from atop the gingered curls. To Oswald's surprise, the response was laughter - full-throated, head thrown back, white teeth flashing in the multicolored glare of stage light. 

He stared - full lips, long, soft lashes, a slender throat lacking any definition. The person in the suit looked almost… female. But the manner, the aggression in the coaxing hands, the cruel turn of the mouth… That was sheer masculinity. He watched, holding his breath as the dancer bent, seemingly inexorably drawn by mocking grey eyes, allowing herself to be kissed - mewling and rolling her hips as a gloved hand found her throat and squeezed. 

"Jak niezwykłe," he muttered to himself, feeling the flush on his own skin. His hands twitched against his thigh and he was dying for another martini. 

As if on cue, a shadow fell over him, standing between himself and the pair he observed, and he looked up. A pair of snug dark denims and a black silk shirt that tapered to a tall blond reading from a list. "Your drink… Fuck."

Oswald could not help the scoff that left him, equal parts amusement and surprise. "Excuse me?" And then he met the gunmetal eyes above the silk shirt, and cursed right back. 

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Gordon snarled at him under his breath. 

"I could ask you the same thing," Oswald glared. "Is the GCPD salary really that pathetic? Sit." Reaching up, he snatched his martini from the tray Gordon held and took a deep swallow. It seemed he was going to need it. 

"What?"

"You're drawing attention." Oswald gritted out through a mask of bored pleasantry. 

Gordon sat beside him, hands curled into fists, shoved tight against his thighs, pressing into the sofa's plush upholstery. He had not stood in the mobster's presence since Penguin ascended the throne, and now was abruptly sitting close enough to smell his Parisian cologne. He had always been sensitive to scents, and he averted his eyes when an indrawn breath made his pulse flutter a little. Respite was not in the cards, however; as he discovered when his gaze fell on the blonde dancer and the firm grip that held her; ruby red lipstick smeared and lips swollen as she kissed the other patron with abandon, gloved fingers dragging the skirt up even as they watched. 

Oswald followed his gaze, not bothering to hide the knowing smirk that curved his mouth. "Magnificent, aren't they?" 

The lights on the pair had dimmed; were a low, throbbing red, the dancer bowing her head against the pinstriped shoulder facing them and whining softly as the patron slipped a hand between her thighs. 

"Is that… a woman?" Gordon asked softly, eye drawn by something familiar in the way the patron's white teeth nipped at the dancer's throat, running a tongue over the mark to soothe the sting. 

Oswald shrugged. "Does it matter?"

Gordon glanced at him. "What are you even doing here?"

The gangster sighed, rolling his eyes in a practiced gesture of long-suffering. "Well I _was_ waiting for a delivery. But he got scared, so I got drunk. Why are _you_ here? Out of the two of us, I'm the one that belongs less." 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Oswald stared at him. "Your powers of observation continue to serve you well, Detective. I am a devotee of Hermes, you see." At Gordon's blank look, he huffed another sigh and clarified. "I prefer male company."

Gordon flushed red to his collarbone, top two buttons of his shirt undone to this advantage. Oswald traced the red bloom down, pale eyes lazy and insolent, the taste of liquor and the upper hand heavy on his tongue. For the first time since Jim had approached him, the gangster realized the other man was a little drunk - eyes glossy and breath smelling faintly of whiskey.

The detective's eyes, desperate to look anywhere but into the penetrating blue stare, glanced back at the dancer and her patron. The dancer was squirming, hands on pinstriped shoulders tense and urgent. "Then what's with that?" He demanded, indicating Oswald's interest in the scene. 

Studying the pair, Oswald shrugged again. "Close enough." A pause to sip again at the martini, before he continued in a lower tone. "You still haven't answered my question, detective." 

"What?"

"Why are _you_ here? Serving me drinks?" The last three words were delivered with a condescending edge, teasing smirk poorly hidden. 

"Undercover." Jim muttered, and looked back at the dancer. His hands tightened again into fists, nails digging into his palms in little crescent moons of sharp pain, but it did nothing to still the erratic rush of his pulse as Oswald drew closer, peering past him at the couple bathed in red light. His breath felt suddenly short, harsh; scent of Oswald's cologne somehow mingling with the dancer's breathy whimpers and lighting him on fire. 

"Pieprzyć to," Oswald gasped softly, deft fingers yanking open his tie and first buttons before finishing off his martini. Watching the flush creep slowly up Gordon's neck, his fingers tightening hard on the dark upholstery, was a bit too much to ask of the gangster for the straits in which he found himself. Drunk, disheveled, melting from the hungry furnace of the taller man's body a few inches away, the dancer's plaintive moan dragging an answering benediction from both of them. 

Jim glanced back at him, running over the open collar and blown pupils and licking his lips. He leaned forward slightly, and Oswald thought his heart might simply cease to beat as those stormy eyes bored into his. But Jim braced his hands on his knees, shaking his head. "This is too weird. I… I have to go."

Oswald laid a hand on his thigh, Gordon nearly jumping out of his skin. "Don't."

The gangster reached up, wrapped a hand around the back of Gordon's neck, dragging him close as if he intended to whisper filthy sweet nothings in his ear, but instead only muttered quickly, "The pinstriped suit has money, a suspicious amount of it. If both of us came here looking for something and both of us came up empty, don't you think they at least bear watching?"

"They bear watching, all right." Gordon muttered darkly, the rasp in his tone sending shivers up Oswald's spine and tingling over his scalp. Gordon found himself being pulled back down onto the couch again, listless and distracted, unable to offer any real resistance though he knew he should. His limbs felt heavy, his tongue swollen in his mouth. It was the same dreamy, sleepwalking arousal he'd felt during the wet dreams that had embarrassed him as a teenager. 

Oswald trembled as Jim's back pressed close to his chest. Though he had encouraged the closeness, arguing with an expressive look that they were less likely to be noticed if they appeared occupied, the tactile presence of it was something he'd been wholly unprepared for. Though he'd played off his anxiety expertly, the Penguin imagined it would come as a surprise to no one that he'd had very little experience in this arena. In point of fact, the only person he'd felt a powerful attraction for was sitting an inch or so in front of him, inundating him with heat. 

He bit his lip as the dancer's whimpers climbed an octave, her legs tensing, braced against the patron's lap. The fedora had returned, albeit askew, lean curve of the jaw barely visible as the sensual mouth suckled hard on the tender skin of one breast, leaving a mark in its sneering wake. 

"Oh, fuck," Gordon breathed softly, and Oswald thought it was because he'd forgotten about the gangster's presence at his back, until Jim leaned into him. Oswald swallowed a whimper, gasping in a breath as he noticed the detective's hand sliding closer to the visible bulge in his jeans. A shuddering breath, and the hand stopped, hesitating. Oswald saw, even in the dark, the cherry flush burning across the back of Jim's neck. 

"Do you want to touch it?"

"W-what?" Oswald's voice was trapped in his throat, an embarrassing creak in the answer. 

"I'm drunk, horny, and it's been a hell of a week." Gordon growled, bluntness surprising even himself. "Do you want to or not?" 

Oswald's expression darkened, pupils dilating till there was only a narrow band of blue to his eyes. "Open your pants." He stretched upward, operating entirely on instinct - the tender skin at the base of the detective's neck had been calling to him for some time. He nipped at it gently, tongue repeating the movement he had seen the pinstriped patron make, and Jim positively _purred_. He did it again, biting down slightly harder, and Jim groaned. 

Completely unfamiliar with this brand of power, Oswald slid a hand over Gordon's hip cautiously. Jim grasped his hand, his own dry and hot, and dragged it into his lap. Oswald's trembling fingertips met fabric, smooth cotton. He dragged down over the Y seam with a blunt fingernail, the answering throb making him dizzy. He was almost painfully hard himself, certain Jim could feel it; wondered if the dancer's breathy cries were even more distracting to the other man. He made to slip slender fingers inside the detective's boxer briefs, but Jim stopped him. 

"Leave them on."

"Is it less gay that way, Detective?" Oswald asked sarcastically. He made to pull away, but Gordon's hand closed over his wrist. 

"No," he rumbled, voice beyond either shame or amusement with wanting. "I just… like it."

Oswald flushed red from his crown to his collarbone, and his cock gave an insistent throb. "Oh god." Gordon curved the slim hand around his shaft, cotton hot between skin, moist where the head pressed against fabric. Oswald followed his lead, stroking slow but firm, sweeping a thumb over the head and breathing out a moan when it came away damp. 

The dancer was climbing steadily to her peak, rocking against the patron's hand in a wanton recreation of the dance she had begun with. She started to keen breathlessly, hands urgent on her own skin as if she felt the flames climbing higher beneath it. The patron looked smug, lips parted, the edge of one grey eye glinting. 

"Watch them, Jim," Oswald panted in his ear, tightening his hand and stroking Jim's cock more firmly, in time with each twist of the dancer's hips. Jim cursed, hips bucking, and Oswald knew he was close. Biting his lip to steel his own daring, he snaked a hand inside Jim's half-open shirt and lightly pinched a nipple between his thumb and forefinger. The blond jerked as if he'd been shot, biting down on his fist to stifle his groan as he teetered on the edge of orgasm. 

All the silken threads broke at once. Arching, her head thrown back, the dancer gasped and let out a keening wail. Jim's orgasm ripped through him like wildfire, cock throbbing under the gangster's inexpert touch. Oswald whined, biting down on the silk covering Jim's shoulder to hold in his own cry as he came in his pants. The relief was so dizzyingly immense that he couldn't be bothered to waste even a thought on shame. Jim seemed to approve, gasping as his spent cock twitched again beneath Oswald's shaking hand. "Christ, Oswald."

Meanwhile, the dancer was getting shakily to her feet, visibly wrecked. Her legs quivered beneath her, the pinstriped figure's will that she stand seemingly the only thing keeping her upright, a boneless puppet. Jim did up his pants hastily as the suit rose, grimacing at the sensation and thinking longingly of hot showers and clean clothes. As he drew the zipper up, time seemed to slow, his eyes watching the graceful posture that seemed so chillingly familiar. 

The pinstriped figure turned, sweeping the fedora off and taking a bow. Short ginger-blonde curls sprang out in a halo as one stride entered into the light. Gordon gasped, cursing. 

Same grey eyes, same haughty smirk, same golden skin now flushed with triumph and high amusement. "Enjoy the show, boys?" One arm wrapped around the blonde dancer, dragging her close as she backed toward the exit. The girl seemed blandly compliant as a sleepwalker. Belatedly, Gordon rose to his feet, Oswald alarmed into cautious stillness behind him. 

"Barbara!"

"Hmm, don't really answer to that anymore, Jimmy-boy," answered the chilly, mocking voice, marked with a razor's edge of humor. "Just here to recruit another playmate! I hear she's a psychiatry major! Fascinating girl." The teeth were even, white and gleaming, a smile that could not be further from a smile. Yet he knew it. And it froze him when he should have leapt. 

A ping and clatter, and the room began to fill with smoke from a riot grenade. Oswald choked, weak lungs unable to handle the strain, and without thinking Gordon turned to shove him onto the floor, away from the rising gas.

"Gotta go, boys! But here, take my card." A mad laugh echoed around the club, seeming to echo weirdly against the walls as Gordon coughed and sank back down to the sofa, eyes sliding closed. Before him, barely visible in the drifting haze, a Joker card from a casino deck fluttered to the floor.

When he came to, Harvey slapping his face and shoving a cup of bad coffee into his hands, the card was still there. Waiting until the other detective's back was turned, Gordon picked it up and slipped it into his back pocket. Whatever dire threat his ex represented now, he wanted to investigate the matter himself before exposing his partner to it. 

Oswald was seated some distance away, being tended by a medic. He glanced up at Jim as he approached, and the medic - a dark-skinned young man with sensitive eyes - gently touched the side of Oswald's face and directed his attention back to the penlight he held. Jim felt an inexplicable but fiercely hot flare of jealousy low in his gut. 

"James." Oswald greeted mildly as the medic excused himself. Jim sat down so the gangster would not have to crane his neck to look at him, vaguely wondering when he had become concerned for the Penguin's comfort. "It seems we have dreadful taste in entertainment, you and I." 

"You're telling me," Jim replied, rubbing the back of his neck in something like sheepishness. He was sobering up, jeans chafing uncomfortably and a headache setting in. 

"Still." Oswald commented quietly, almost thoughtfully. "Who would have imagined that bland little socialite would have such a gift for… theatrics?" The last word spilled over his lips like honey from a tilted jar, syllables rounder and sweeter in his mouth than he'd intended. At Gordon's intake of breath he instantly regretted it, till the detective spoke. 

"Look. I'm not going to pretend that didn't happen. Earlier, I mean."

Oswald gaped. "I… I beg your pardon?" Though the blushing adolescent inside him had yearned for more, he had never for a moment thought to seriously entertain the possibility. 

"It would be easier to, but it wouldn't be right. I wouldn't do it to a woman, and I won't do it to you." Gordon seemed uncomfortable, but earnest, blue eyes serious and trained on Oswald. The intensity of the gaze made the gangster squirm. "I know who you are. And what you do. But… I at least owe you dinner." He looked away, mumbled the last unfathomable thing. "And we can see what happens. If you're alright with that."

"I don't want your pity, Jim." Oswald said cooly, misinterpreting the detective's awkward hesitation. 

Gordon huffed, running a hand through short hair. "Look, I'm still a little drunk and I've never done this before. Work with me here." 

Oswald softened, studying him with pale blue eyes, deep wells of serious contemplation. "Yes. I would love to have dinner with you, James Gordon."

Gordon nodded, swallowing convulsively, rising to his feet. "Okay. I mean, good. I'm gonna go home and shower. Do you need a ride?" He seemed jumpy, eager to retreat into introverted solitude and gnaw at the events of the evening like a taciturn bulldog. 

Oswald decided to spare him. "No, thank you, I have some calls to make. My driver will come for me."

A shadow fell over him again, a hand descending to linger, warm, on his shoulder, a thumb brushing his neck. He trembled, a little, trying to fight it. "Oswald."

He looked up. Jim was serious, eyes tracing the planes of his face as if he'd memorize them. "Try not to kill anyone. I want to give you a fair shot."

Oswald swallowed, eyes round as saucers. "I'll try." 

Jim left then, squaring his shoulders and determinedly not looking at Harvey as the other detective followed him outside, peppering him with questions. Oswald relaxed finally, releasing a breath he had not realized he'd been holding. 

Picking up the cellphone, he dialed a number. "Gabriel. So sorry to trouble you at this hour. I need a car at the Cat Scratch club, I'm in the VIP room behind the stage. Our delivery never arrived, but I have a fairly good idea of why. Have Victor tell his new pet at the GCPD to get us every case file that mentions leaving a Joker as a calling card." A pause. "Yes, all of them." 

He hung up, pocketing the phone; turning his thoughts towards more pleasant endeavors, the scent of Gordon's cologne and a hint of salt still lingering on his waistcoat. His stomach fluttered, an unfamiliar feeling but one that he associated with a giddy rush to Jim's sudden appearance in his life. 

_I want to give you a fair shot._

_I'll try._

He usually let other people do his killing, anyway.

A few weeks passed, chilly autumn beginning to turn to winter; and Gordon had managed to shove the memory of the debacle to the back of his mind - at least while he was on the clock. The touch of Oswald's hand, uncertain yet greedy, haunted him each night. The Penguin had been busy indeed, difficult to pin down; and the detective had started to think that it was deliberate until a parcel showed up at his apartment one evening, delivered by a courier in an Italian suit. Inside he found tickets to the opera, a single burgundy rose so velvet-dark it was almost black, and a dry cleaning bill - _one tuxedo, full service._ He flushed, turning the bill over to read the note inscribed on the back in careful cursive. 

_I thought I'd provide the entertainment this time. Pick me up at eight. -O_

Feeling his pulse quicken in a heady surge, Jim headed back inside, wondering what exactly one wears to the opera.


	11. Princes of Light & Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim and Oswald start a family.

_Imagine for a moment, if you will, a different world. One where cruelty and savagery are not the order of the day. Where violence is the last resort, rather than the first. Where cities torn apart can be mended, white can marry itself to black, a community made whole._

_Imagine a Gotham where light and dark can work together, exist in harmony. Where peace is valued more than victory. Where orphaned boys do not grow up to become vigilantes._

* * *

Adoption was a surprisingly easy matter in a city overflowing with unwanted children. While the reins of power were now in better hands, the damage of the past two decades ran deep. The system would rather see lost children in the loving arms of virtually anyone, than in dubious foster care or on the street with so many others. And a police commissioner, what a catch! Still, the social worker assigned to their case balked somewhat at the second name on the file. _Oswald C. Cobblepot._

Oswald, astonishingly, did not possess a criminal record. He had a talent for escaping the consequences of his actions, a roguish nerve and duplicitous tongue keeping his head above water long enough to put a crown on it. That said, the Penguin's name was spoken in whispers now as Carmine Falcone's once had been. The social worker hesitated, understandably, at signing paperwork that would make such a man into a parent. 

"So many children here," the man in question said airily, looking around at the stacks of files and children being signed in or departing for their new homes. "Things seem a bit crowded, don't you think? Outdated."

The caseworker, a pretty redhead who had once casually dated Harvey Bullock, in the days before Gotham's present golden age, pursed her lips disapprovingly but nodded. "I… Yes, you could say that."

"How much do you think it would take to build a new center?"

A small frown creased the pale skin between foxy brows, bright eyes narrowing. "Mr. Cobblepot, I-"

"Would two million be a good starting point?" The Don asked calmly, withdrawing his leather-bound checkbook from the inner pocket of his waistcoat. Beside him, the tall, blond and newly appointed police commissioner rolled his eyes. 

* * *

Gordon arrived home late one evening, setting his briefcase down by the door. His partner was nowhere to be seen, living room dark except for embers dying in the small modern fireplace. The light was on in the nursery, and as he turned toward it he heard a German curse explode out of his usually soft-spoken lover. 

"Need a hand?"

Oswald turned to face him, sitting on the floor in what was obviously piercing discomfort, holding a bit of prefabricated wood and a screwdriver as if he had never seen such objects before. "This is not exactly my forte." 

Jim was amused to note the confession came with a self-deprecating pout, and choosing to withhold comment, bent to lift Oswald from the floor and deposit him carefully in a blue-cushioned rocking chair. He took the items from long white hands, setting them aside and sitting on the floor where Oswald had been. He loosened his tie, then raised both hands to his partner's bad leg, gently rubbing the old injury. 

"Why did you start without me?" He asked, indicating the partly-constructed crib - mostly a confusing jumble of parts from Oswald's efforts. The other crib was still in the box it had been delivered in, but eventually the nursery would house two. Money being virtually no object, the room - and by extension the entire house - were crowded with identical pairs of everything and anything one might need to care for a newborn. 

Oswald fussed with a baby blanket, folding and refolding it on his narrow lap before setting it aside. "I just want everything to be perfect for them. I… I've never…" He trailed off, looked lost; pale blue eyes growing a little misty. 

"Hey, hey." Jim leaned up on bended knee, a knight kissing his dark prince until peace and pleasure suffused his aristocratic features once again. "It will be." He took one thin white hand in his, rubbing the ball of his thumb over prominent knuckles. "You're gonna be great."

Oswald stared at him, mouth tilted slightly to the side, one brow raised in questioning intensity. "Are you sure?" 

"Positive."

* * *

The twins were fair, blue-eyed as most infants are, with identical shocks of unruly black hair. Oswald lamented that neither was towheaded, like Jim; concerned that it would affect Jim's image of himself as a father. These concerns were put to rest when he saw Jim one morning before dawn, not long after they had brought the babies home. Plaintive cries had woken them around midnight, small voices mewling for sustenance. Since Oswald's leg was often stiff in the middle of the night, Jim got up to tend them. He was passed out on the sofa, head tilted back and snoring gently, one tiny boy nestled safely in the crook of each arm. 

Oswald smiled, taking the child from Jim's left side and cradling him in his own arms, bending carefully to press a kiss to his partner's sleeping brow and the silky dark locks of their other son. Holding the baby close, the son he - secretly - thought favored him more, he went to the bay window and peered out, tiny slit in the curtain sufficient to see his own men, standing guard by the door; and a black-and white police cruiser parked across the street, two uniforms drinking coffee in the front seat. The sky was still blanketed in grey twilight, sunrise a good hour or two away. 

It was a new day in Gotham, and his family was safe. He tucked the twins into their cribs, quietly turning on the penguin-shaped nightlight - a tongue-in-cheek gift from Harvey Bullock to his new godsons. Oswald didn't mind - emperor penguins were devoted fathers. 

* * *

One teething infant is an exhausting proposition, two nearly suicidal. Yet these were the circumstances in which Jim found himself, rocking the boys in a double swing as he waited for Oswald to return home from the day's business. 

His partner's key in the lock was like the sound of angels opening the seal, releasing him from purgatory. Unfortunately, the low jingle and click woke the fitfully sleeping babies, and they started to wail again. 

"Oh god," he groaned, head in his hands. "Please stop crying."

Oswald hummed affectionately at him, long cool hands brushing over his temples and pausing to rub gently at the tense musculature of his neck. "Go pour us some drinks. I'll take them." 

Stretching out his bad leg as he took Jim's seat on the couch, Oswald lifted the babies to his chest, cradling them close, unconcerned by his very expensive tuxedo's proximity to drooling baby mouths. When Jim returned, a stiff scotch in each hand, the boys were asleep, Oswald crooning a German lullaby. 

"How do you do that?" Jim breathed softly, enchanted by this man he had chosen to build a life with.

Oswald settled the babies back into their swing, stroking each cheek in turn with a loving fingertip. "My mother used to sing to me when I was ill. I thought they might like it."

"You're amazing."

Oswald smiled up at him, as radiant as the first time Jim had said yes. Yes to his friendship, yes to their relationship, yes to their future. "I'm so glad you think so. Shall we?" He allowed himself to be led into the other room, not wanting to wake the children as they clinked glasses and drank to their family's good health.

* * *

They had named the twins Remus and Romulus, which seemed fitting. Adopted boys, raised to rule an empire. At times Jim looked at them - bright, pleasant boys with their perpetually tousled dark hair and eyes that were blue like his own - and wondered if it was all too much. Too great a burden to bear, the stewardship of Gotham in these youthful hands. One son in the light, one in the shadows, keeping the city on the course their fathers had set. 

But then Remus would come home from school with a heavy book on military tactics knocking around in his bag, tugging on Oswald's waistcoat for advice on a book report. "It's for extra credit, Papa. Can you help me?" 

Or Jim would find Rom in the kitchen with an ice pack over one brow and a huge grin on his face, oblivious to Oswald's tutting as he regaled them all with a tale of how he had taken on the bully at school and knocked him flat. 

And in moments like that, it seemed they could never possibly grow to be anything else. 

* * *

It was typical, in the mafia, for a father's son to take over the family business, rising through the ranks as he came of age. The heir to all that the Penguin had built was a Gordon in name, but the Don's son took after him in all the ways that mattered. Clever and calculating, a charismatic young gentleman; Remus was nonetheless cautious, competent and fair - qualities he may have inherited from his other father, along with the name. 

It was less typical for a police commissioner's son to become a pillar of law enforcement and political titan in his own right, helped along by perfectly timed favors from his twin brother - and yet, not so unheard of in Gotham. Rom Gordon ruled with a just and fearless hand, and at times used the seventeen minutes of elder birthright to which he was entitled to keep his more pragmatic twin in check. 

The sapling strength that Gotham had begun to display under their fathers' influence blossomed into a mighty oak for the twins, law and order operating hand-in-hand with good business. It was an unprecedented era of peace, in light or in shadow. Gotham was big enough for compromise - the city they forged was imperfect, but a stronger and more compassionate entity than it had ever been. They held a solemn promise of loyalty, to put the interests of the family and the city itself before smaller pursuits - business, politics, the rule of law. 

The community healed, by leaders who for the first time in the Gotham's long memory took the responsibility seriously. What had once been a covenant between lovers extended to a family motto; a collective vow that had chased the worst of the ugliness from Gotham and ushered in a new day. 

_Together as one, against all others._


	12. Desperate Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald needs one last favor from Jim.

The missive in his hand was crumpled, ink running from spilled vodka and the abuse of wringing, twisting fingers. Hard liquor on his delicate stomach was a fool's errand, and even as the thought alighted he heaved, lurching from the armchair and landing hard on his knees before the stone fireplace. Coughing into spent embers, the dust swirling into his face and alighting on his lashes. Ash in, ash out; his whole world burned to ash and his heart inside his body - crumbling and blowing away in the galestorm overtaking Gotham. 

Jim, gone. Knight errant back on his white steed, a shining beacon for change once again. The GCPD rallied around its stern new commander and his golden standard-bearer, and Oswald couldn't blame them. Jim had that effect on people. There was something about him that drew the eye like the last candle when night falls. He had tried, foolishly, to capture it - to lure that light into the darkness, to keep it for his own. 

And his mother… His mother. Fragile, delicate soul; willfully oblivious to all the ugliness in the world. She was shrewd, but petty and in many ways innocent. He had thought he could protect her through anonymity, or failing that, through the fear the click of his umbrella and muttered susurration of his name engendered in the streets. And yet… The audacity of this Galavan was unspeakable, intolerable. But his hands were tied. The livid bruise on his mother's cheekbone stood out in his mind's eye like an accusatory finger pointed at his back. 

The letter he gripped, talons so white-knuckle tight that the scrap of paper might never be legible again, was a ticking time bomb. Galavan was displeased with his progress; urged more murder, more violence to stain the very foundations of the new order he'd hoped to build. Victor had failed; and that left the Penguin to clean up the mess. 

He pulled out his phone, fingers fumbling at the keys, trembling hands a testament to how costly a single call could be. 

"What do you want?" The answering voice snarled. Oswald supposed he couldn't blame him.

"I need your help. Please."

A long pause followed, punctuated with a short, irritated sigh. "I told you, no more favors."

"This isn't a favor. I'm reporting a crime."

"Then call dispatch."

"Jim, it's my mother!" He yelped the words, swallowing the torrent of tears that threatened to break free of his restraint. "Please, they have my mother."

A military man, punctuality was one of the detective's many virtues. He was ushered in by an appropriately chastened Victor, a bandage stretching across the lean assassin's chest, its bulk beneath his dark sweater a souvenir of his last encounter with Gordon. 

"Detective Gordon," Victor greeted pleasantly, "No hard feelings?" He bowed out of the room, slightly mad eyes glittering with something that was strangely like respect. 

Gordon glared after him, tense and aggressive until the heavy double doors between himself and Zsasz were securely shut. Then he turned his tension and aggression on Penguin, instead. 

"What are you playing at, Cobblepot?" He demanded - and Oswald could not help but flinch a little, just the blink of pale eyes, at the use of his given name. "Don't you have soldiers for this kind of thing now?"

"If they know we're searching for her, they'll hurt her." Oswald's voice was barely more than a whisper, audible as an echo in the empty room.

Jim sighed, turned away, hands braced on his hips as he shook his head in consternation at the marble floor. "How do you always do this?"

"I apologize that my mother's kidnapping is such a source of distress for you." Oswald hissed scathingly, then immediately regretted it. "James, _help me._ She's innocent."

Gordon scoffed, still refusing to turn and face him. "I think you're a little unqualified to define innocence. She raised you, after all."

Oswald surged to his feet, gripping the table for balance; eyes wide and manic. "Fine, Jim! Insult me, if it makes you feel better. Make me the target of all your frustration and hostility. But if you're not going to help me then get out. Time is short."

Gordon turned to face him, bombardier eyes stern but not entirely devoid of compassion. "I never said I wasn't going to help you."

Oswald sagged, collapsing back into the chair as he gaped at Gordon. "You… you will?"

"Your mother's a civilian. There's no need for her to be caught up in all this, it's senseless."

The Don stared at him, looking much younger than his position would suggest, pale eyes glossy and fixed on the detective as if observing a miracle.

"Don't look at me like that." Gordon muttered uncomfortably, withdrawing his notepad from an inner pocket. 

Oswald blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

The detective rounded on him. "Don't _look_ at me like that. Like I'm your guardian angel, or something."

Oswald averted his gaze, swallowed. "My apologies. The past few days have been… trying. Your unexpected kindness is a light in the darkness."

Gordon seated himself in the chair closest to the Penguin, shifting as if he could not settle. "Some light. Just another dirty cop helping the mob. Again." He gritted his teeth, looked disgusted with himself. 

Oswald chuckled, a bitter sound. "When I feel this cold, you're like the fucking sun."

It was Gordon's turn to gape, for the span of a single heartbeat - teeth snapping together with an audible click when he realized his mistake, training his eyes on the notepad in his hand rather than on the icy blue eyes watching him with something too much like adoration. "Let's just find your mother."

"Indeed, detective. I am at your disposal. And Jim?" Gordon looked up, relieved to note that the gangster had tucked the higher emotions away beneath his facade of black and white. "Thank you."


	13. Fire and Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after a tumultuous night, Oswald is concerned about Jim's feelings for him.

Morning dawned slowly in Gotham; night the bigger, fiercer sibling, clinging to the earth with dark determined talons though long fingers of light stretched from east to west, chasing shadows.

One pale blue eye opened a slit, blinking cautiously. He glanced around the room - the watery sunlight trickling its grudging way through the window, gleaming dully on the glass of water and detective's badge on the bedside table. The powerful torso, breathing softly beside him. Blond hair like beaten bronze, tousled from his own grasping fingers. 

The air was hushed, quiet as a tomb, a little stale and chalky in the throat. Oswald sat up, reaching for the water glass over Jim's slumbering shoulder. He sipped it thoughtfully, staring into the middle distance; one hand absently rubbing at the ever-present pain in his leg. The cool silence moved through him with his breathing, in and out. 

The night before had been different; all fire and noise - the crash of shattering crystal as he'd thrown his scotch into the hearth, flames flaring up hungrily and dying just as quickly. Sharp glass, glittering with devilish temptation. Rough hands, holding his upper arms with a grip that burned; rasp in his ear so furious that he'd already started to cry out in protest before realizing the words were kind. 

_"What are you doing?"_

_"What does it matter?"_

_"Matters to me."_

He turned to face the warmth in the bed beside him, profile avian in silhouette, all crazily tufted hair and aquiline nose. "James? Are you awake?"

"i am now." The answer rumbled from beneath one arm, and Jim rolled onto his back, staring bleary-eyed at Oswald. "What's up?"

"Does it bother you?"

_Does it bother you, knowing what I am? Does it bother you, knowing what I have done, what I must do to survive? Does it bother you to know that it doesn't bother me?_

Jim reached up, brushing a lock of black hair casually away from clear and waiting eyes; ignoring or oblivious to Oswald's shiver when their skin touched. "It should." He studied the gangster, gaze somber and pensive in the wan light. 

Oswald held his breath, feeling himself slide slowly underwater, wondering how long he would linger there and if it would ever be safe to breathe again. His future hung in the balance on the edge of Jim's tongue; waiting to break the surface or freeze solid, trapping him in darkness. 

"But it doesn't."

Pale blue blinked slowly, refusing to break the gaze, though another shudder rocked through him and he swallowed hard. 

Jim reached for him, pulling him down. "I am in love with what we are, not what we should be." Calloused fingers stroked the pale skin of Oswald's arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake as they swept from shoulder to wrist. "Is that what you wanted to hear?" He paused, searching his lover's face with a whisper of anxiety. 

In answer Oswald pressed urgent lips to his, cool fingertips clinging tight as he allowed himself to be more firmly reassured.


	14. Any Port In A Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim gets caught at Oswald's club in a blizzard.

Every so often, we all encounter one of those days where we know, almost immediately, that we should have stayed in bed.

For Detective Jim Gordon, the day came on a Thursday. There was something about Thursdays that just always set him off-kilter. He started thinking of the day as unlucky when he stubbed his toe on his way to the bathroom upon awakening. It was downgraded to unpleasant when he dropped his keys in a puddle of slush while unlocking his car. But Gotham loves to leave an impression, and so only an hour or so into his first case, unpleasant progressed to downright apocalyptic. 

The sky had been overcast all week, a dove-grey blindness with a biting, crystalline chill in the air. As he pulled the car - sans Harvey, who had responded to his invitation with a curt "fuck that" - out onto the street from its lot in dispatch, the boding threat became reality. Fat flakes began to fall, thick and fast. 

Cursing his luck and the ironic machinations of fate, he headed in a near-whiteout to the person who knew best how to weather a blizzard.

"James, what an unexpected visit. To what we do owe the pleasure?"

Though the clock's needle was still well on the side of the antemeridian, the Penguin's tuxedo was sharp and stylish as befitted an evening establishment. The low red light glowing softly behind the display bottles glinted off his tie pin. He leaned against the bar, polishing a glass - a rising star with new properties in abundance, yet still fond of the little club where he had started it all. Gordon had expected to find him here, felt a certain low thrill that he chose to ignore in favor of the equally alluring twinge of annoyance. Penguin's polished politeness always managed to vex him on shit days.

"I'm only here because of the blizzard. If I try to drive back to the precinct in this I'll wrap the car around a pole."

"Heaven forbid." Oswald commented mildly, appearing genuinely chagrined. "By all means, of course. You must stay here until the weather clears."

"Yeah." The rumpled cop agreed, not looking happy about it.

"Can we get you a drink? You look a bit chilled." 

"It's nine a.m.," Gordon stared. 

"Yes, and you have chosen to take refuge in a _night club_." Penguin replied slowly, as if he were explaining the matter to a small child. "Now, about that drink?"

"Fine. Coffee. Black."

Oswald raised a brow, but summoned Butch regardless. "Butch, would you kindly make a pot of coffee for our guest?"

"Sure thing, boss."

* * *

After an hour or so of stilted attempts at conversation, during which Oswald looked as if he might be about to jettison out of his own skin with nervousness, the gangster excused himself graciously to a back room.

"Work to do, you understand." He said, a politely practiced grimace on his narrow features as he tilted his torso slightly to one side, fidgeting to be gone even as he expressed regret to be going. "Unfortunately my responsibilities do not cease in the event of inclement weather." He seemed almost genuinely disappointed; but Gordon knew the Penguin lived for his business. He waved him off, curving both hands around the warm mug on the table before him. 

"Go. I'm not a customer, you don't have to waste your time entertaining me all afternoon."

Oswald looked aghast. "I don't consider my time with you to be wasted, Jim." 

Jim glanced away quickly, not wanting to meet the look in Oswald's eyes that would accompany that statement. Coffee, fine. Talking, fine. But he wasn't ready to look into those eyes when the guard went down behind them. "Right." He said, clearing his throat, shifting in his seat as if he'd rather be elsewhere. "But go on. You have plenty to keep you busy, I'm sure."

"O-of course." Oswald swallowed, remembering himself, standing ramrod straight again. "Butch will bring you anything you need."

"Thanks."

* * *

The blizzard continued throughout the day and into the night, blotting out the sun. The mayor, sycophantic train wreck that he was, had been on the news declaring a state of emergency. Streets were closed and the homeless were rounded up and placed into temporary shelters lest they make more work for the road crews attempting to clear the snow away. At the going rate, the city would remain in lockdown on the morrow. 

The club stayed closed, Oswald shrugging off the loss of patronage with a moue of displeasure and a sigh. "Thursdays are usually dreadful anyway."

"You're telling me," Gordon muttered, earning himself a quizzical eyebrow. 

"Would you like some champagne, detective?" Oswald offered. 

Gordon snorted, a little more incredulously than Oswald felt the occasion warranted. "Champagne?" 

"It's nine p.m." Oswald rejoined mockingly. 

Gordon rolled his eyes. "Alright. Fine. Sure."

Oswald smiled, a cat with the cream of his victory. He waved Butch over from where the large man sat watching television behind the bar. "Butch, bring a bottle of champagne out, will you? Your choice."

Butch's choice turned out to be a lovely rose bubbly with a gold-leaf seal and a triple-digit price tag. Gordon wanted to laugh at the selection but, seeing the serious expression on Butch's face, elected to suppress the urge. Oswald noticed his mouth twitching and hid his own smirk behind one elegant hand. It was an excellent vintage and his henchman had good taste - still, the image of Butch pouring foamy pink suds into a trio of glasses was a somewhat incongruous one. 

A full bottle of pink - _pink!_ \- champagne later, Gordon called a halt to the festivities. "Alright, that's enough. I've got to try and get back to the precinct tomorrow."

Oswald gazed at him, something impudent in his eyes that had not been there before the rose champagne lent its tinge to his pallid cheeks. "My, detective; that blazer must be rather a snug fit."

"…Excuse me?" JIm returned, finally meeting his eyes. 

Oswald smirked. "For the sled and team of huskies you no doubt have hidden beneath it." He looked toward the windows at the front of the club, which were blanketed with snow and entirely opaque. "You'll need one if you intend to travel anywhere tomorrow."

"Fuck," Jim muttered, then laughed. The chuckle came as a surprise even to him, rolling up from his chest with a genuine, boyish smile and a glint in stormy blue eyes. "Guess you're right. Don't mention this to Harvey, though. He'll never let me live it down."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Sure. You'll probably tell him first chance you get. We both know you're no good at secrets." Jim didn't seem particularly concerned, draining his glass; but Oswald still felt the prick of injured pride.

"On the contrary, James. I'm very good at secrets. I have a deep appreciation for their ability to change us. To control us."

Pale eyes stared into deeper blue, the latter blinking slowly in acknowledgement of a point well earned. Gaze now locked, it proved harder even than he'd anticipated to break it. 

Oswald rose to his feet, the picture of smug satisfaction as he reached out for Jim's glass, intending to clear the table. His fingers brushed Jim's, the most fleeting instance of skin against skin, and he bit his lip to hold in his gasp. Jim was staring up at him searchingly, cataloguing each nuance as it passed over his face. 

"I-I'll just take these behind the bar. Butch will show you to your room." Oswald managed, a little breathless despite his best intentions, and made his escape.

Secrets, indeed.

* * *

Jim could have pretended that he'd wandered into the wrong room while seeking the bathroom, that Butch's instructions had been somehow unclear when settling the detective in for the night. If pressed, he probably would call it a mistake, a simple wrong turn. 

He told himself the lie, and it lay flat and two-dimensional at the bottom of his mind, lacking even the appearance of conviction. _Fuck._

Fingertips light against well-worn wood and polished brass, he quietly swung open the door to the Penguin's bedchamber. 

Oswald stood before a mirror, preparing for bed. His waistcoat already hung on a hook by the door, smelling of mint and expensive aftershave. Long white hands unbuttoned his vest, continental cross, cuffs, shirt; setting aside glittering cufflinks and peeling the layers away one by one. When he pulled off the oxford, revealing the narrow white torso beneath it, Gordon gasped. 

Oswald met his eyes in the mirror. To the gangster's credit, his gasp was quiet; an utterance of surprise before weakness. The vulnerable look in wide blue eyes hardened to ice as he reached instinctively for his knife, before realizing the intruder was Jim. He set the knife down in a hand that, just barely, trembled - fingertips wavering over the hilt as if uncertain about letting go. 

"James. How can I help you?"

"I… Was looking for the bathroom." Jim said lamely, mouth dry. The eyes in the mirror were a mirror of his own, both equally certain of the lie. 

"I see." Oswald turned to face him. "It's not here." His hands were nervous, white birds battling against black as he wrung them together, but he fought and succeeded in keeping his posture relaxed. 

"You're… You're wearing…"

"A corset, yes."

Jim stared, something like hunger in expanding pupils, taking in the contrast of jet black satin against white skin, hugging lean ribs and a narrow waist. His lips parted and he licked them, oblivious to the way Oswald traced the movement and tightened long fingers punishingly over one wrist, holding in a whine. The corset cut off just above the sternum, its laces tight and clearly visible in the mirror.

"Why?" Jim asked, unaware of how the tone in his voice rasped across the aural nerves like rough hands over fragile skin. 

Oswald pondered for a moment, then turned his back on the scene, continuing his routine. As if in a dream, Jim took a step closer, narrowing the distance between them. Oswald felt his presence like a furnace at his back, but endeavored to ignore it. "I could tell you that I was born with a curvature of the spine, and I've been wearing it since childhood to correct my posture. Or I could tell you I wear it because I enjoy the way it feels on my body. What would be the difference? You assume that everything I say is inherently dishonest."

"It isn't?" Jim seemed to catch himself, straightening and forcing his eyes away from that black-and-white line. 

"I have never lied to you, James." Oswald sighed tiredly, as if this were an argument they had revisited many times, though the words were new. "Omitted, when your safety or my own depended on it. But never lied."

Gordon shifted uncomfortably, wracking his brain for an example to the contrary and coming up empty. "Fine. Which is true?"

"Hmm?" Oswald asked, unclipping silver suspender snaps from his trousers where they hung low on narrow hips. 

Gordon found his eyes tracing the line of pale skin, crisscrossed with black lacing, a diamond pattern of dichotomy up the slim back, white bones pressing against the surface as if they'd break through and become wings. He glanced away, pressing his lips together. "Which is true? Do you wear it for your spine, or because… Because you like it?" He lost his voice, then found it; squaring his shoulders unconsciously as if facing down some unknown threat when Oswald turned to meet his eyes.

"Oh." The corner of thin lips twitched up, just barely, into a smirk. Oswald lowered his lashes, picking up a white shirt of fine linen, embroidered at the cuffs with tiny umbrellas, and hanging it over the chair beside his bureau. "Both."

Jim swallowed, his hands curling into fists; rooted to the spot as Oswald brushed past him, scent of expensive Parisian cologne caressing his face as the smaller man passed. 

"I didn't want to come here."

"Yet here you are."

"I keep telling myself to stay away from you but somehow I keep ending up right in your lap again."

"Well," Oswald murmured, traveling up the detective's taller form, "Not quite."

Jim flushed, nails biting into humid palms. "I didn't want to come. Every time I'm around you I forget a little more. Or remember. I remember how you make me want to surrender."

Oswald stilled, all white skin and black satin, collarbones a sharp frame beneath the pulse fluttering in the hollow of his throat. "James?"

The detective was looking at him with the echo of anger on his handsome features, but it wasn't anger animating his limbs, pulling him forward, raising hands to that inexorable black-and-white line. Hands fell to Oswald's sides, and the gangster gasped, pale blue eyes flickering upwards in questioning alarm. Jim's hands were heavy at his waist, calloused thumbs dragging over satin as if he'd never felt something so decadent before. Perhaps he hadn't. 

"James." 

Jim looked at him, gaze hooded, and Oswald thought he would simply combust. "Hmm?"

"I think you'd better tell me exactly why you're here."

"I wasn't looking for the bathroom." The confession came with a roguish purse of the lips, a hidden smirk. 

"I see that." Oswald replied, a little breathless as fingertips traced the laces at his back. "What are you looking for?"

"I think I found it." Jim growled, and pulled Oswald tight against him, firm fingers tugging his jaw up for a kiss. 

Oswald whimpered, gripping Jim's lapels and holding on for dear life; already dodgy balance completely thrown off by the sudden press, hot and hard against his groin and belly. Jim broke the kiss and dragged his mouth over Oswald's throat, lifting the smaller man onto the bureau so he could nip the rounded point of his clavicle and trace his tongue over the elegant line. Oswald carded fingers through his hair, blunt nails scraping over his scalp, and Jim swore softly.

"Jesus this is intense," he muttered, a breathless little chuckle leaving him that flirted with the edge of nervousness.

"Having second thoughts?" Oswald asked shakily, unable to keep the tremor from his voice. 

" _No_." Jim said vehemently, his entire body throbbing with insistent hunger. "No. I just, haven't done this before. With a man." Glaring at Oswald as if Jim's relative inexperience were his fault, the blond appeared to come to a decision. The zero sum of his own experience cast into harsh relief, Oswald could not help a nervous laugh, more a hitching breath and bitten lip than any audible cue. Jim swept the gangster up in his arms, crossing the room and depositing him on his bed. Oswald could not conceal his gasp, this time, staring up at Jim like a princess in the process of being rescued from her lonely tower. 

Jim followed him down, stretching over the smaller man in a posture that could only be described as predatory. He lowered his lips to the curve of Oswald's neck, teeth and tongue pressing as if he'd like to leave a mark, and rocked his hips down. Oswald's response was instantaneous, arching up with a mewl, desperate to prolong the friction. Firm hands gripped narrow hips as Jim found a rhythm, grinding against the city's most notorious gangster, delirious with sensation. The contact was dizzying, but frustrating and incomplete; composure hard to maintain with Oswald slowly losing his mind beneath him. The gangster whimpered, and gasped his name, and pleaded most exquisitely with the silver tongue that had earned him such notoriety. 

Jim pulled back, hands roughly opening his own pants and tugging them off. One cool hand fluttered down, alighting on the head of his cock, long fingers wrapping around the shaft and stroking gently. Oswald's eyes on him were wide, curious, almost reverent; and Jim groaned, hips bucking into the tentative touch. "Fuck," He gasped, fingers fumbling at the tiny button on Oswald's formal trousers, till slim white hands took pity on him and completed the task. He dragged the fine black trousers down, cautious over the old injury, tossing them aside and settling again between the smaller man's thighs. When skin met skin, Oswald bucked against him, keening breathlessly. 

Lingering uncertainty dissolved into friction and heat, long cool hands holding Jim close, his blood a roar in his ears. The gangster was gasping, rocking upwards in short, fast, hard thrusts that made his head spin. The scent of sex and Parisian cologne settled deep into the animal portion of his brain and stayed there, musk and bergamot dragging a groan from deep within his chest. Oswald heard it and started to shake, thin fingers biting into Jim's biceps as he struggled to hold on.

"Oh fuck, Jim, Jesus!" He came with a cry, arching up and flushing red from high cheekbones to the corset that still hugged his torso. One hand twisted in the bedsheets, white-knuckle tight; the other slid down to the detective's very athletic rear and squeezed. 

"Christ," Jim gasped, shuddering. "Oh fuck." His orgasm overtook him like a storm, blowing through him and turning his vision to white. 

Missing seconds smoothed out, minutes ticking by as heartbeats slowed and breathing quieted. Oswald lay very still, unwilling to be the one to break the stalemate. Finally Jim moved aside, climbing to his feet. 

Oswald listened to the retreating footfalls with some trepidation, the lingering euphoria of his release tapering away to a dull sense of anxiety. He heard water running in the adjoining bathroom, old pipes complaining at the hot water being summoned through cold brass. 

"Oswald?" Jim asked, peering around the doorway, towel around his hips. _Now would be the time to call that a mistake. To say it won't happen again._

Spent and bare save for the corset and the thin black trouser socks held up by garters, there was nothing to do but maintain the illusion of unruffled calm. Oswald met the gaze and smirked, tamping down his nerves. "Found the bathroom?"

"Figured since I'm going to be stuck here for a while I may as well enjoy the facilities." He glanced at the tub, then back at the gangster still sprawled naked and blushing on the bed he'd just left. _Oh well. It's Gotham._ "Plenty big enough for two. You coming?" 

Oswald smiled, a full smile this time, and followed like the cork from a champagne bottle.


	15. House of Wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim wanders into the Narrows spoiling for a fight, but gets more than he bargained for. Oswald must intervene.

A full moon always brought out the worst in Gotham. Or the best, depending on your perspective. The tidal draw pulled men and women from their beds and set them to dancing in the street; fighting and reveling and stealing and fucking. Always a three-ring circus, full moon nights were at their most boisterous and destructive in the Narrows; silver light shining down indifferently on Gotham's poorest and roughest denizens. 

Gordon had begun the night just itching for a fight, spoiling for violence - visiting a liquor store instead of a bar, handle of whiskey in the pocket of his denim jacket the only thing keeping him warm. Drinking as he walked, shoulders up, head down, hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans. Even Harvey avoided him when he was like this, spitting mad and determined to have his way even if he had to fistfight his way through Gotham's criminal underbelly. Irrational, furious; with that low aggravating hum between his ears that had haunted him on the battlefield and haunted him still. 

He lit a cigarette, forbidden vice bummed from a passing hooker on a brighter avenue as he moved through the Narrows. The smoke inundated him, stale and cloying, cheap tobacco and probably carpet shavings making his head spin. He dragged fiercely on the repulsive thing until it was just an ember burning his lips, casting it down and turning his back on the streetlights.

Barnes had let him down, in the one way Gordon was certain he never would - turned out crooked as all the rest of them. His high hopes crumbled down around him again, and he couldn't think of a better way to spend the evening than drinking cheap hooch alone and working out his aggressions on whichever unfortunate soul had the idea to try mugging him first. Prowling the back alleys on the border of the entertainment district, it was bound to happen at any moment. 

The fist, when it came, was almost a relief - a beringed concussive slam to the back of his head. It hit him midstep, and he was astonished to have been caught so unawares, and then he was falling, gritty oil-slicked pavement riding up to meet him. His nose was spared by barely an inch, the dulled reflex to turn his head aside saving him where his flailing hands had not. But his lip was bloodied, split by sharp teeth within and pointed gravel without. The blood ran down his chin as he tried to struggle to his feet, cursing, fists up; but a flurry of blows rained down on him from multiple directions. _More than one, then._ But how had they gotten so close?

The answer nearly eluded him, raising his arms over his head to defend himself as darkness teased at the edges of his vision, and then he saw it - black patent leather and chains, the faintest whiff of predator. 

_Victor Zsasz._

It was unusual for the assassin to sully himself in the Narrows, he must have heard on the wind that the blond cop was knocking about looking for a fight. Zsasz had never been one to refuse a rematch, and still owed the GCPD for the death of his favorite cenobite. 

Shadows gripped him hungrily, raising him to his feet, dragging him across the asphalt to one derelict brick wall; his shoulders slamming hard against the cold surface. He struggled, but his arms were wrenched tight and immobile, vision clouded through whiskey and pain and one black eye. He saw, or thought he saw, the glint of a razor in one gloved hand - and then the ring of metal on the pavement pierced the night and cleared the way. 

Oswald Cobblepot stood in the sliver of moonlight spilling into the alley, leaning on his umbrella, monocle glinting as he studied the scene. 

"Victor. This is most irregular."

Zsasz was still for a long moment, blade in his hand straying not a millimeter from its position over Gordon's lower abdomen; his mind already full of the viscous sliding slap of intestines spilling from a sliced gut. The vein in his temple twitched and he smiled, taking a step back, raising his hands in the poorest imitation of harmlessness ever witnessed by man. "Just having some fun, boss."

"Indeed." Penguin replied, tone dancing on the edge of threat and disapproval. "Release him, please."

Zsasz's acolytes answered to no man but him, and waited for a curt nod from their master before obeying. The Penguin could not begrudge them the hesitation - loyalty was so rare these days. Expensive, and transient. It was a pretty thing to see even when not directed towards himself. 

"Would you excuse us, Victor?" He requested politely, though it was not a request and Zsasz knew he wasn't asking. "I'd like a word with Detective Gordon alone."

Zsasz surveyed the scene, gaze narrowing in something that might be frustration on a more expressive or genuine man. "Sure thing boss." He melted into the darkness at the end of the alley, as was his wont, cenobites following obediently behind like lethal shadows, the hounds of hell. 

Zsasz was only part of the problem, however. Cops were unwelcome in the Narrows at the best of times, even less on the bacchanalia that the city's lower beings made of nights like this one. The full moon made for a merry light to sink bodies in the river by. Oswald had come of age with the knowledge, his savvy understanding of the streets crucial to his survival. He hoped that even drunk, Gordon was wise enough to know it as well. 

The detective in question dragged himself wearily to his feet, lip starting to swell. Whiskey and blood slurred his words as he spat on the pavement, resentful and crude. "I don't need your help, Cobblepot."

"Ah yes, the fearless Jim Gordon; purifier of Gotham. Aren't scared of anything, are you?" Oswald drew close, breath huffing out in small frosty puffs. "Tell me, Jim. If I seemed dangerous, would you be scared?"

Jim's lip was puffy, gleaming wetly crimson with blood. Oswald wanted to suck it, could almost taste the metallic salty tang on his tongue, felt the throb of wanting scorch through him like wildfire. Taking down his monocle, he polished it and tucked it away, an excuse to avert his eyes from the tempting sight. 

"You'd never hurt me." Jim scoffed, sure in the assertion as only drunks can be.

Oswald considered him for a long moment, something dark and unreadable behind the pale glimmering gaze. "No. I wouldn't. But they will." He tilted his head, as if listening for the approach of pounding footfalls. "I can't stop them all, Jim. Not all of them work for me. Word would have spread by now. Run."

_Can't run._

He didn't speak the words, but Oswald saw every syllable written on his face and despaired. "You have to," he insisted, voice low and urgent now, all attempts at supercilious facade gone. "Jim, _run._ "

Gordon staggered away from the wall, glancing over Oswald's shoulder at the dark alley beyond, as if listening for the threat approaching on swift feet. He hesitated, in an agony of beaten pride and indecision, then turned on his heel and ran. Oswald watched him go, wondering how long it would be till Jim accepted his help without a mouthful of blood to make it go down smoother.


	16. Bethesda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald takes a bullet meant for Jim. Jim must sift through the aftermath and accept what meaning he can find.

_Condemned men are honest men, I find._

_In their last moments, people show you who they really are._

The figure lying still beneath the white hospital linens seemed unusually small, unusually fragile. He was typically diminutive; slender and slight, all large pale eyes and black hair styled with a view to the aggressively postmodern. The hair was flat now, soft and fine against pale skin; eyes closed and shaded almost violet with his proximity to death. There was no stiff, fashionable formal attire to add layers of bulk and gravitas to the Penguin. There was only Oswald, lying silent and so white he was almost blue under fluorescent lights. 

The ticking clock was a distraction. Jim counted the beats, ignoring the dissonance between the metronomic click and the beat of his heart. When he had first arrived, first glimpsed the boy - a mere boy, a few years younger even than himself, for all the scheming and hubris - his heart had hammered against his ribs, a caged bird fluttering and desperate. Now it was slow, sluggish with exhaustion and dread; the time between each beat stretching out in seconds, hours, lifetimes. 

A small tap at the door, and a short figure all in black leather crept in. Gordon eyed her warily, but she walked with silent steps and hands spread, offering peace.

"What are you doing here, Selina?"

The girl who called herself Cat looked at him, then gazed at the figure in the bed for a long moment. "He didn't send anyone after me when I left. Could have. Probably should have, with everything I knew. But he didn't." She sniffed, turning away, scrubbing roughly at her face with the back of one hand. "Always thought that was decent of him." 

She sank into a crouch, studying him. After a staring contest that crossed into the realm of uncomfortable standoff, Jim looked away. 

"Heard he took a bullet for you."

Gordon swallowed, hands tightening on the narrow arms of the chair, biting the inside of his cheek till he tasted blood to keep in his scream. _Only a mobster._ Oswald was just another mob boss, gunned down by a rival or some miscellaneous crazy, god knew Gotham had enough of them. Then why had the dead black eye of the barrel been aimed at him? Why did it feel like he was teetering on the edge of hysteria?

_Heard he took a bullet for you._

"That's true." He admitted lowly, wondering if the spotless linoleum beneath his feet would open up, allowing hell to swallow him whole. "Don't know why." The words were a shameful rasp, throat closing on the lie as if his physical body could prevent his wretched soul from speaking it.

Selina scoffed, as good a judge of character as ever and sensible as a brass tack. "Never saw anyone look at a person the way he looked at you, Jim Gordon." She said, and damned if he didn't burn with the dishonor of being chided by a teenager. 

Biting down, tasting blood, clenching his fist on his thigh. Nodding. _Yes. Alright. I knew._

She studied him thoughtfully, the hiss of the respirator filling in the space between them, Oswald present in spirit though just barely in flesh. "Looks like you have another murder to solve, detective." He could almost hear the lingering disapproval in her tone. 

"It's not a murder yet," he snarled back at her, rising to his feet as if he could turn the shooter out of the tiny closet or smoke him out from under the hospital bed. He stared at Oswald, wanting to touch him, to whisper to him, to demand answers to his thousands of questions. _Why?_ To give his own answer back. All the things he could not do beneath the weight of watching eyes. He spun abruptly away, hand on the door. 

"Talk to Manny the bookie down on Warehouse Row." Selina said quickly, as he opened the door. Gordon paused, turning back, only to see her sliding through the doorway before he did. Christ, the girl moved like a ghost. She glanced over her shoulder at him, already prowling down the hospital corridor, eyes shifting about in search of baubles she could pocket. When he met her gaze, she offered a shrug and a tiny but genuine smile. "He was alright. I'd hate to see who fills the chair if he dies. So do your job, and don't get killed."

Gordon took the smile, the only bit of kindness he'd had all through the long watches of the night. "Yes m'am."

* * *

In the end, the culprit was painfully simple to find. Regime changes are always a shake-up, and sometimes a few screws get knocked loose. Gordon had booked the shooter into the precinct, but he had a sneaking suspicion that whatever the outcome of the trial the man would end up at the bottom of Gotham River anyway. He tried to feel outrage, resentment. He felt only peace. Silent tranquility, in the contemplation of another human being's death. _This must be what he feels like every day._ He could not make the thought trouble him. Oswald had jumped in front of a gun for him. They were not soldiers, fighting the same war. They were not lovers, or even friends. The life debt between them had been repaid and then some. And yet… And yet.

Loyalty was a unicorn in Gotham, so rare as to be almost mythical. To be loved with a purity and selflessness that allowed for sacrifice was a blessing, a sweet respite in the unrelenting danger and hardship of his chosen quest. Could he afford to scorn such a gift? Could he afford to reject sanctuary, however unexpected the house of mercy in which he found it?

He found himself wandering, finished with the precinct but not wanting to go home. His phone rang, shrill tone dividing his thoughts as cleanly as shears cutting through ribbon. The caller ID announced Harvey's summons - perhaps he had a case to distract Jim from his more pressing concerns. 

"Harvey, what have you got for me?"

"Jim, it's Cobblepot. The hospital just called."

Jim stopped in the middle of the intersection he'd crossed, mindless of traffic and the rain starting to fall, dampening his shoulders. He opened his mouth to speak but could not form the words. After a moment of silence that stretched to its breaking point, Harvey continued. 

"He's awake."

Jim turned in the direction of the hospital and ran. 

* * *

"Tell me why."

Oswald smiled, exhausted still despite having been asleep for the past week. White fingers twitched on the bedspread, unconsciously beckoning Jim closer. The detective obeyed, drawing near enough that he could see the delicate spray of freckles across alabaster skin. "James. Isn't it obvious?"

"I need to hear you say it."

Pale eyes met his, serious and vulnerable, naked in a way neither had ever experienced before. "I don't know if I can risk that, Jim. There's no one to catch me if I take a dive." The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile, mirth and anxiety all at once. 

Jim sank into the chair beside the hospital bed, reaching out to touch Oswald's slim, cool hand with feather-light hesitation. As their skin made contact, the quiet beeping of the monitor increased ever so slightly to his practiced ear. Oswald swallowed and met his gaze, and Jim pressed down more firmly with his hand - calloused fingers wrapping around fragile bone, the pad of his thumb sweeping across the delicate tracery of veins like so many azure pathways hidden beneath snow. "You jumped in front of a bullet for me. I need to know why." His gaze flickered for an instant, down to their joined hands and up to glassy, hopeful blue - the last frost of spring. "I'll catch you, I swear."

Oswald's composure cracked, something that was indiscernibly a laugh or a sob escaping him. "I've been in love with you since you tossed me in the river." He said with a wry smile, shrugging winsomely to hide his tremble. 

Eyes widening as if in sudden pain, Jim lunged forward - Oswald flinched, gasping aloud when the detective wrapped both arms around his coltish frame and held him close. Suddenly he was enveloped in warmth and the woodsy, earthy scent of Jim's cologne, the detective's heart hammering against his own. 

"Things are going to be different," Jim was vowing in a low, urgent tone. His lips against Oswald's ear were hot, confiding; and the smaller man could not help but whimper softly. "I don't know how but I'll make it work. I won't let anyone hurt you."

Oswald gripped Jim's lapels, tugging till they were nose to nose. "Don't toy with me, Jim Gordon, I'm a dangerous man." And somehow, laid up in a hospital bed with a bandage across his narrow chest, the threat rang true. 

Jim broke eye contact, looking down as the words tumbled out from clumsy lips. "I probably shouldn't, I should probably go and never come back… But I can't do the right thing when you look at me the way you do."

"Right is a relative term, detective." Said a familiar, sardonic voice from the doorway. Jim glanced over his shoulder from where he half-knelt on the bed, hands full of the city's newest crime boss, and met laughing green eyes. 

"Cat," Oswald greeted warmly, a spark of pride and familiar affection dancing behind his eyes. 

"Hey boss." Selina gave a little wave with the fingers of her right hand, perching on the visitor's chair Gordon had abandoned. Even seated, she seemed restless and alert as a feral feline, twitching to be off again. "Heard you were hiring."

Trapped in limbo between two forces, Gordon sank down on the linen beside Oswald, for all the world a concerned lover bending over the invalid's sickbed. He relaxed his grip and cleared his throat. "Selina. You were saying?"

Selina raised a finger, as if remembering. "Right. It's relative. Right and wrong are matters of perspective. That's all I'm saying." She snatched an apple off the tray intended for her once-and-future employer and stood, casually kicking the chair just out of Gordon's reach so he would be compelled to remain on the bed with Oswald. "Catch you later, boss."

"Always a pleasure, Cat." Oswald replied mechanically as she sauntered out the door, the morphine drip in his arm making the entire situation seem a bit surreal. After a long moment, the ticking of the clock returning some semblance of normalcy to the quiet room, he took a deep shuddering breath and looked at Jim again. 

"I'm injured, Jim. Please tell me you weren't playing some cruel joke."

Jim laid his hands over Oswald's, touch firm and reassuring. "I'm not. I swear. I don't like your methods but I know your heart. I know you want to do right by the city. And I…" He offered a small, earnest smile. "I could use you in my corner, to be honest."

Oswald blinked. "I'm sorry, in your…?"

Jim laughed, running one fingertip down Oswald's cheek to soothe the ruffled frown, oblivious to the other man's quiver. "It's an expression. Means I trust you."

"You… really?" Oswald blinked, as if he had never heard such a thing before. Perhaps he hadn't. 

"Yes." The blonde stared at him as if the admission were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Jim?"

"Yes?"

"I'd very much like for you to kiss me now."

Jim quirked a brow, the beginning of a smile teasing his lips. "Hmm, I don't know. Let me just ask the nurse-"

Long cool hands wrapped around the back of his neck, thin fingers carding through his hair and dragging him down into a kiss.


	17. The Holly and The Ivy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhat improbable Christmas fluff that follows on the heels of the midseason finale. Oswald finds Jim alone in a bar on Christmas, and is the bearer of unfortunate news. A gift for kai_puppet for the 2015 Gobblepot Holiday Gift Exchange. 
> 
> Goes beautifully with this lovely fanart by @abovetheruins:  
> http://abovetheruins.tumblr.com/post/136561051435/acquaintedwithvice-abovetheruins-my-gift-for

The whiskey in the bottom of his glass looked red. It wasn't, of course, but the ruby-and-gold shine of the Christmas tree to his right was lending its ruddy illumination to everything in the room. He could see the shining, bulbous reflection of a round red ornament in the side of the highball. Even the pub itself was more full of holiday spirit than he was. Gordon took another sip, and sighed.

_I think we need to take a break._

A break. Not even a solid no, a punch to the gut that he could have taken standing up and moved on from. A break - the teetering uncertainty nagging at him, unfinished business lingering in the back of his mind. Rather than a clean severance, he was afforded the opportunity to languish in guilt and stubborn concern, the ring he hadn't given her coming back to haunt him at odd moments like the symbolic and wretchedly appropriate ghost of Christmas future.

 _Do you even want to marry her?_  The question had come, as most blunt inquiries did, from Harvey - and Gordon could not suppress the wry smirk that curved his lips as he realized how often Harvey spoke the words his conscience wouldn't. A generally unimaginative man, Gordon couldn't really say he had a voice in his head - but if he did, he thought it might sound like Harvey.

Did he want to marry her? Not really. Not this suddenly. The wreckage of his relationship with Barbara was still floating about on the choppy waves, jagged and sharp, sinking everything it came in contact with. And his time with Lee had been... lacklustre... A series of lies and half-truths, and his skin crawling with the urge to be elsewhere when she placed her hand upon him. It had been a delight, at the very first - Lee was accepting and uncomplicated, or had seemed to be. But his taciturn nature and attachment to the job had become a shroud between them, through which only bickering and heavy silence could penetrate. The harder she tried to hold onto him, to force him into new and more pleasing shapes, the more he threw himself into work - as if the call of Gotham itself and all its denizens awaiting justice wasn't lure enough. They drifted apart and back together, a boat tethered to its mooring more by force of habit than anything else.

_I'm pregnant._

The news filled him with the sort of cold dread that awaits soldiers as they enter battle. He had pictured himself as a father, but only in the abstract - not because it was what he wanted to do, but because it was what was done. Men went to war, they had careers, they procreated. It was what his father would have wanted - another strong boy (or girl, Jim liked to think of himself as progressive) to carry on the Gordon name. But his father was dead and Gordon was alone in a city full of monsters, with only Lee's disapproving eyes and cool touch for company. He downed his whiskey and signaled for another, grimacing.

 _No._  He didn't want to marry her. But he would, because there was a child, and it was what his father would have done. Gordon senior had been even more attached to the badge and the streets than his son - at the very least he could be present in the kid's life where his old man had not been.His whiskey arrived, and he raised it to his lips, red glinting off of it as the oaky, bittersweet smell flared his nose.

"Whiskey, Jim? Not very festive."

The detective set the glass down with a thunk, glaring at the table for a moment as a slim form took the barstool beside him. He didn't look up to greet the voice - there was no need to - brooding instead into the depths of his whiskey. "Oswald."

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Cobblepot." The bartender greeted cordially, a not disingenuous smile on his face. "What'll it be?"

"Do you have any eggnog?" The Penguin asked politely, almost sweetly - as if he were not the most notorious gangster in Gotham. As if he had not shoved an umbrella up to the hilt in a dead man's throat less than twenty-four hours before.

"Picked it up special for you." The bartender said, and hustled off to the back to retrieve the holiday beverage from cold storage.

"Didn't know this place was one of yours." Gordon grunted in a tone that implied he would not have come if he had.

"It's not." Oswald replied diffidently, shrugging. "I've known the bartender for many years, he lives in my mother's neighborhood." A grimace, a twist of grief that took barely a heartbeat, passed over his features as he mentioned his mother. "I'm only unpleasant to those who give me cause to be, Jim."

"Then why are you still here talking to me?" Jim demanded scathingly, whiskey hot and ugly in his throat.

Oswald raised a brow, sighed, unable to hide the flicker of hurt deep, deep down beneath the ice of his eyes - but merely a flicker. He had suffered such trauma in recent weeks - mountains of agony, oceans of pain - that Gordon's pettiness barely ranked. Barely. "No one should be alone for the holidays."

He did not mention that he was also alone. In his compound, deeded to him as property of the crown when Falcone abdicated, there were only hired guns and servants. His sainted mother was dead. Gabe turned in early most nights, unless summoned by his master. Butch was gone, cowering in whatever hole he'd found for himself upon realizing that Zsasz would stop at nothing to collect a contract. And Victor himself did not take holidays, especially when there was blood calling his name - he was likely combing the darkest parts of Gotham, seeking the prey that had thus far eluded him.

Jim chuffed into his whiskey as if the statement were the most amusing thing he'd heard all night, and Oswald eyed him skeptically. "Shouldn't you be with Lee?" The gangster shifted uncomfortably as he said her name, as if he had something he'd like to say but could not muster the gumption to do so.

Warm and buzzing with alcohol but a detective nonetheless, Gordon noted his unease and zeroed in on it with the focus of a laser. "She - we're taking a break. Why?"

Suspicion rolled off him in waves, and the bartender chose that moment to reappear. Taking note of the tension between the two men, he quietly slid a surprisingly pretty mug full of spiced eggnog to Oswald and made his escape back to the tiny kitchen.

Oswald sipped the drink, smoothness of cream and bite of rum warming his insides - thin and physically fragile at the best of times, he had barely realized he'd been cold. He studied Jim carefully, the tingle of fresh nutmeg on the tip of his tongue, hesitant to speak. The envelope in his inner breast pocket all but burned against his skin, a secret demanding to be revealed. "It's not really my business. You should speak to her."

"Oswald-" Gordon ground out, hand tightening on his glass.

Fearing for the structural integrity of the highball and the detective's palm, Oswald sighed and withdrew the envelope, sliding it across the bar to Jim.

"What is this?"

Oswald sighed, looked away. "I'm sorry. I am naturally suspicious, and when she said she was pregnant with your child..." He trailed off again, hand tightening on the handle of his umbrella, face blank in an attempt to hide whatever emotion it was that silenced him.

Unable to tolerate the suspense, Gordon ripped the envelope open clumsily, withdrawing a single sheet from inside. Though his first instinct was distrust, a cursory glance at the paper made it clear that forgery was unlikely. It was a photocopy of a hospital-issue pregnancy test, bearing the watermark of Gotham General. The test bore the name Leslie Thompkins, was dated a week past...

And it was negative.

_I'm pregnant._

He clamped a hand over his mouth to hide his expression but could not quite stifle the snarl of outrage that rumbled from his chest. She'd lied. She'd  _lied_ , in an attempt to control him, to alter his course from Galavan's inevitable and well-deserved destruction. He finished the whiskey in his glass and thrust it away from him, worried that if it stayed in his trembling hand a moment longer it would shatter or go crashing into the mirrored wall behind the bar. Oswald watched his expression cautiously in that mirror, waiting for the explosion. It didn't come.

Gordon gripped the bar white-knuckle tight, breathed in a sigh that pushed his chest out like a bellows, then released it, angry and harsh, through his nose. He glared at the polished wood beneath his hands for a moment, then turned the gaze on the Penguin. "There's not enough whiskey here. Come on."

"I - excuse me?" Oswald finished his drink, thin hands fishing for his wallet as if compelled to obey though he could not fathom a location with a more adequate supply of alcohol than a bar.

Gordon shrugged his jacket on, fumbling for his own cash - a gesture that became superfluous when the gangster tucked a crisp hundred beneath his empty glass. For once complicit with Oswald's characteristic largess, Gordon shoved his hands into his pockets and stared down at the smaller man. "There's a bottle of whiskey at my place that I've been saving for just such an occasion, and I'm going to need help finishing it." He was already halfway to the door, Oswald following him though not entirely on board with the stated plan.

"Jim, I really don't think - "

Gordon opened the door, Oswald's sleek black limousine waiting by the curb. "Get. In. The. Car."

Oswald raised a brow, a smirk curving lips that still tasted of sweet cream and liquor. "Of course, detective."

* * *

Keys jangling rather obtrusively in the lock, Gordon wrenched his apartment door open and stumbled over the threshold, automatically turning to close it behind himself before remembering that the Penguin followed close on his heels. Bemused by the snowflakes dusting the top of the shorter man's head and the collar of his fur coat, he stepped aside with an unnecessarily grandiose gesture that spoke of sarcasm or drunkenness.

Oswald stepped into the room with all the trepidation of a vampire being invited inside, glancing around at his surroundings. He had the instinctive observation of a bullied child, and took note of the exits and items that could be used as a weapon in addition to gazing with some appreciation upon the modest but welcoming atmosphere. The furnishings were modern but comfortable, casual decor done mainly in earth tones.

"It's quite nice," he murmured softly, and already standing at the kitchen island rummaging for the fabled whiskey, Jim snorted.

"Were you expecting a hovel?"

Oswald rolled his eyes, removing his coat and hanging it on a handy stand by the door. "You're a busy man, detective. I merely assumed you had no time to decorate."

Jim emerged with an unopened bottle and two lead crystal glasses in his hand and offered a lopsided, self-deprecating smile. "Actually it came furnished. But thanks anyway."

Seating himself on the sofa, he waved the bottle vaguely in an invitation for Oswald to join him.

Oswald considered the situation, and seated himself rather primly in an armchair adjoining the sofa. The detective was a little tipsy already, and he lacked confidence in his ability to keep his cheeks from flaming into a blush if he strayed too close to the blond with his open collar and casually rumpled hair. Better to keep his distance and avoid the embarrassment. Merely a drink between friends, to keep the Christmas misery away. Or not even friends. Acquaintances. Accomplices.  _Well, any port in a storm._

Jim poured two generous fingers into each glass and slid Oswald's across the coffee table to him, deigning to resist comment on the other man's unusual degree of respect for his personal space. "Hope neat's okay."

"Perfectly adequate." Oswald replied, and sipped the whiskey cautiously; pleased when the harsh oaky overtones he'd expected were barely present, subsumed instead by a smoky, almost buttery flavor. "This is quite good, Jim. I had no idea you were such an aficionado."

Jim snorted, free with his laughter this evening. Oswald felt something grim and tight in his chest loosen a little every time those white teeth and blue eyes flashed with humor. "I'm not - it was a gift from Harvey. No idea where it came from, it's outside his price range."

One of Oswald's lesser holdings, a gentleman's club on the outskirts of the wealthy district, had been raided several weeks past, and the manifest revealed some of the more valuable items had gone missing. He had a feeling he knew where Harvey had acquired the expensive bottle - but could not bring himself to feel anything but mild amusement over the irony of drinking his own stolen whiskey. Such was life in Gotham - and honestly it was a Christmas miracle that Bullock had given it away at all. He must have had a spare bottle.

The pair drank in silence for some long moments, together and alone with their thoughts. An outsider would have smiled to see them, the contrast between the Penguin's dark formality and the blurry gold that was Gordon at his ease, the way their movements mirrored one another in a strange synchronicity that implied more than just casual acquaintance.

"I'm sorry." Jim blurted abruptly.

Oswald lowered his glass carefully to the table, suddenly stiff. "Please clarify."

"I'm sorry-" His words were bitten off by a sharp intake of breath, as if he would apologize for his own wrongdoings - of which there were many. He knew it. The blurred lines of Gotham's ethical compass was an ocean of guilt that had opened unexpectedly beneath his feet when he pinned on the detective's badge. One of the things that irked him most about his relationship with Oswald was his inability to fool himself into believing that cruelty toward the other man was a moral necessity rather than something he did to keep his own head above water.

The silence stretched uncomfortably long, and he took another swallow of whiskey to wet his lips and find his footing again. Oswald watched him patiently, head tilted slightly to one side, pale eyes heavy as lead.

"I'm sorry... about your mother. Really. She seemed like a good person."

Oswald's hand tightened on his glass and he shut his eyes for a moment, turning his face away.  _Sorry._  He was sorry. He'd placed himself staunchly between the Penguin and his well-deserved vengeance, and yet he was  _sorry_  for his loss. Rage flared up his narrow chest, pouring into his throat and threatening to choke him, to spill from his lips in shrieking vitriol. He waited. Counted the seconds, grip on his glass white-knuckle tight. In his mind, hearing again, the crack of an aluminum bat against Galavan's ribs, his pelvis, his skull. The crack of a pistol as Jim's bullet finally, for once, kept his word.

"She was a saint." Oswald said at last. "The only person who ever loved me." He set the glass on the table with a decisive thump and slid it toward Jim with two fingers, the gesture saying all that he could not.  _I accept._  An acknowledgement of Jim's weakness, of all that would not - could not - be said. A willingness to lay this particular burden down; a nod of assent to an apology that had not been spoken aloud.

Jim refilled both their glasses and raised his in a toast, which Oswald met with a clink. Oswald stared into the glass for a long moment, but Jim drank deeply, wondering why whiskey tasted so much like crushing gratitude.

* * *

Genuine laughter, infrequent enough from both men, sounded all the more merry when tinged with the golden camaraderie of good liquor.

"Jesus," Gordon chuckled, bumping into the coffee table as he staggered to his feet and sending a little rill of whiskey sloshing over the side of his glass. Aghast, Oswald whisked an embroidered handkerchief from his sleeve and tucked it under the glass, setting off another gale of laughter from the detective. Oswald peered at him, a slow, boyish smile creeping over his features until he, too started to laugh. It was only after a quick but careful scrutiny of the other man's features - a reflexive habit learned over many years - that he realized Jim was laughing at him, yes, but not with malice. He could live with that.

"I gotta... Bathroom," Jim gasped, gesturing vaguely in a random direction with one hand pressed over his abdomen, still quaking with mirth as he reached the hallway threshold.

Oswald followed his movements, gaze surprisingly sharp for a man with several very fine whiskeys slowly replacing the blood in his veins. He traced the lean line of the detective's back, eyes falling on the little sprig of greenery decorating the doorway overhead.

"Why James," he murmured, only half aware of saying it. "It appears someone wants to kiss you."

Jim spun, glancing around the room as if expecting an amorous assailant, then looked at Oswald in puzzlement.

A smirk playing on pale lips, Oswald raised one finger and rolled his eyes heavenward, prompting the other man to look up.

Jim saw the mistletoe and colored, cheeks pink and hot. "Oh. Lee put it there." The irony of the situation should have made humor inappropriate, but he could not resist a chuckle as he added, "I'm guessing she probably had other plans for the evening."

"I can only imagine." Oswald said dryly, though his detached expression did not match the warm drawl of his words. He swallowed them on another mouthful of whiskey, looking askance as if he had said nothing.

Jim flushed again, and retreated into the bathroom. A splash of cold water returned him to himself, but only slightly. His pulse was loud in his ear, glow of intoxication simultaneously relaxed and demanding.

Having managed his business and composed himself with an admirably short delay, Jim emerged from the bathroom, leaning against the freestanding island from which he had retrieved the now half-empty bottle when the night began. The whiskey was damn near the only thing in the house and he hadn't even bought it. Gotham owned his life to such an extent that he hadn't even picked out his own furnishings or thought to visit the grocery store. Harvey's whiskey, Lee's mistletoe - was there anything in his apartment that belonged to him?

His gaze fell on the gangster, now lounging in a more relaxed posture in the low armchair, continental cross undone in the rosy heat of the room. He swirled the whiskey around and stared into its amber depths, unaware of Gordon's scrutiny, long fingers holding the glass with the same delicate precision he applied to most other areas of his life.

_Right._

Oswald had been his from the moment he tossed him in the river - his snitch, his burden, his ever-present thorn in the side. His confidant. His wake-up call. That nagging feeling in his gut, the lesson hard-learned - that guilt and innocence were not always the same as right and wrong, that sometimes a man could do the wrong thing and still be innocent, or play by the rules and be guilty as sin.

There was at least one thing in the apartment that belonged to him.

And Gordon? Who did he belong to? The city, mostly. To the darkness... at least a little. To Lee? Not anymore, probably never again - if indeed he ever had. He slipped away from the counter, pressed his spine against the lintel of the doorway, feeling the wood cool and firm like a reassuring presence at his back. "Oswald."

"Hmm?" The other man looked up, for once at a loss for words. His light eyes caught the yellow of the incandescent bulb and looked golden for a moment, the rising sun on snow. All at once, Jim could not find his breath.

"Come here a minute."

Oswald tilted his head in confusion but obeyed willingly enough, setting his highball down rather theatrically and climbing with some caution to his feet. The room swayed unhelpfully but Gordon's place was small and cozily furnished - he managed to cross the room with various handholds and thus left his umbrella behind.

As he drew close to Jim, he glanced around in some trepidation, expecting by instinct some trick or tomfoolery. Rare it was that someone invited the Penguin unbidden and without apparent reason into their personal space. "What is it?"

Oswald paused a half-step away and Jim felt dizzy, stomach having traded places with his lungs, or perhaps his heart with his tongue, or both. Gravity wasn't working properly and his heart threw itself at his ribs like a beast in a cage intent on hurling itself out no matter the cost.

He had never done this before, or at least, not when it mattered.  ** _It matters?_**    _Yes. Yes, it matters._  He was inexperienced in this scenario, hands twitching at his sides for a moment until instinct sent him swaying forward, taking the other man's hands in both of his and pulling him that last-half step.

Oswald's balance, dodgy at the best of times, was entirely off-kilter and he raised a hand to brace himself before he fell; palm resting flat against Jim's chest. He raised his gaze, warm and lost, to meet the other man's. "James?"

Jim raised both hands to the smaller man's face, fingertips slightly calloused against the smooth and fragile skin they met. He smoothed thumbs over the plane of the cheeks, the high flat bones, feeling Oswald's pulse stutter and jump under his touch in the soft vulnerable point beneath the jaw. Oswald's eyes widened innocently, maddeningly, gazing up through a haze of top-shelf whiskey and absolute shock. He could not find the words to form the question half-raised on parted lips, instead only staring. Jim teased his lower lip with the ball of one thumb, sweeping over the curve with a daring impunity.

The words tumbled out unbidden, in a husky tone that the detective did not immediately recognize as his own. "I'm really glad you came. Is that crazy?"

 _I don't think I'm qualified to answer that inquiry,_  Oswald thought wildly, heart like a hummingbird's, held motionless in a snare with nowhere he'd rather be. Instead, he only said quietly, somewhat breathlessly - "I'm glad I came too." He glanced up, saw the innocuous sprig of greenery and red ribbon dangling overhead, wiry muscle and tendon tightening almost imperceptibly in preparation for some cruel joke.

Jim felt the tension, his hands on the curve of Oswald's neck and angle of his jaw heavy and warm. "I'm going to kiss you now, if that's alright." The want of it was a restless beast in him, held on a leash only by the knowledge of the fragility inherent in the man he held, and the heavy weight of all the debts owed.

Oswald made a tiny whimper in the back of his throat, a small stifled sound and a jerky nod that Jim took as assent, lips velvet-soft but eager. The gangster trembled, thin white hands gripping Jim's shirt to hold himself upright, completely at the mercy of a single kiss. His inexperience showed in his hesitance, the tiny mewl he made at first contact; but his lips parted softly, tip of his tongue feather-light against the cupid's bow curve of Jim's upper lip... And the stoic detective, skilled at rebuffing all advances and remaining unruffled,  _groaned_. Strong arms wrapped around his waist and pulled him close, and the rush was dizzying - Jim Gordon, master of razor's edge restraint, undone by the touch of his mouth.

Jim gripped narrow hips, thumbs biting and urgent, dragging Oswald firmly against him as he leaned into the wall, balance precarious. The gangster gasped and tossed his head back to meet the taller man's gaze, pupils dilating as he panted. Watching those eyes, Jim could not conceal his knowing smirk as he rolled his hips, pressing hot and hard against the criminal quaking in his arms. Oswald moaned softly, a little needy frown etched between dark brows, and as if moving of its own accord, his gaze flickered to the dark hallway and the dimly illuminated doorway of the bedroom beyond. He looked equal parts desperate and terrified, completely out of his element - a man accustomed to nothing but hardship and pain suddenly granted his most closely guarded and cherished wish.

Jim followed the gaze and chuckled, a low rumble in his chest - Oswald tensed again reflexively, but the sound was gentle.

"Just this, tonight." Jim muttered quietly. "You've been drinking."

" _I've_  been drinking?" Oswald returned, voice trembling despite his incredulous tone.

Jim grinned, at ease and wondering at the fact. "Alright, we've been drinking." He slid two fingers beneath Oswald's jaw, tilting his head upwards and kissing him once more, mouth warm and covetous.

The gangster surrendered and returned the kiss, tremble in his hands giving away his gratitude for the reprieve. There was a dark, long-ignored part of himself that howled at having the prize snatched away when it was so close - but a larger part, closer to the surface and visible in his pale eyes, that quivered with relief. Want burning beneath his skin notwithstanding, this was unknown territory - approaching it again in the sober light of day paid homage to the caution on which he had built his entire life. He smiled into the kiss, pulling back slightly and looking away through lowered lashes, a tiny smile playing across his lips - soaring joy carefully controlled.

"Jim?"

"Hmm?"

"Merry Christmas."

The detective could not help but return the smile, the chaos that had been trailing him all year somehow resolving itself into this, unexpectedly imperfect perfection, at the eleventh hour. Not alone at Christmas, after all.


	18. Home for the Holidays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald and Jim spend the holidays with their family. Much Christmas cheer ensues. Gift for abovetheruins on Tumblr's Gobblepot Holiday Gift Exchange.

Snow drifted lightly down through the yellow arc of streetlights, turning the noise of the streets to silence and layering the ancient trees and sidewalk with white. Worn rubber-soled shoes stamped up the graven steps of a large brownstone, their owner cursing softly in a labored plume of fog. The doorbell rang, a mellow chime; and from within light rapid footsteps like a distant stampede thundered down the stairs and into the foyer.

"I'll get it!" Remus called, setting his book on the hall table as he strode toward the door.

"No, I'll get it!" Romulus cried, the sturdy nine-year-old elbowing his twin out of the way. Remus glared, but straightened abruptly and grinned as his father stepped out from the coatroom, one raised eyebrow stopping the boisterous elder twin in his tracks.

"I'll get it." Oswald announced sternly, but then smiled at his sons before turning to open the door. "Captain Bullock, what an honor."

"You invited me, Penguin." Harvey chuffed, laden down with a red sack of brightly packaged presents. "It's been thirteen years, could you just call me Harvey?"

Oswald smiled thinly, mirth dancing in pale eyes. "Come in, please. Boys, unburden your uncle." The twins darted forward, seizing the bag and scarpering down the hallway, order restored as they were reunited in a common purpose. "Put them under the tree - _nie Podglądaj_!" Oswald called after them.

"What are you feeding them?" Harvey groaned, stretching to pop his spine back into place after being relieved of the burden that the boys had shouldered easily.

"Primarily? Everything that's not nailed down." Oswald replied dryly, and moved down the hall, gesturing for the detective to follow. For the first time Harvey noticed the city's most notorious crime boss - ahem, businessman - was wearing an apron. It was long, of a dark burgundy, with deep pockets and sans frills or ostentation. But still, it was an apron. Oswald followed his gaze and scoffed. "My tailor doesn't come cheap, and we have growing boys to feed."

"I said nothing," Harvey returned, holding up his hands in surrender. "Where's Jim?"

"Doing some last-minute shopping. I told him the twins have more than enough presents, but you know Jim - never quite satisfied with the status quo." He moved to the bar, white hands setting up two cups near a steaming pot of spiced wassail. "Drink?"

The first Christmas Eve Harvey had tasted Oswald's wassail, he had scoffed at its sweetness, and downed a mug too many, waking Christmas Day with a thunderous hangover. He now approached the drink with the respect it deserved, doffing his gloves and coat and setting them into Oswald's insistent hands in exchange for the hot mug. "Thanks."

Oswald gathered the garments, sweeping back off down the hall toward the coatroom. As he passed he glanced over his shoulder with a small smile - "Don't mention it... Harvey."

  
* * *

  
Jim wandered up a street in downtown Gotham, hands in pockets, head lowered as he peered through the large but slowly falling snowflakes into shop windows. Oswald had called to announce dinner's imminent completion but he still had yet to find the perfect gift. Though Oswald was an earnest soul where he was concerned, genuinely delighted with every gesture however small, he had really wanted to find something that would convey everything he could not. Thus far he had been unsuccessful, and he sighed, unaware of the pout he wore - the pout that his partner would often claim drove him wild, even as Jim denied its very existence. He stared into the illuminated display of a jewelry store, nearly oblivious to the crunch of boots on snow behind him until the figure drew abreast.  
  
"Last-minute shopping?" The feminine voice was familiar, genuinely low and rich now where before it had been artificially affected. He turned to meet familiar wide green eyes, rowdy bronze curls slicked back into a tight chignon, snug leather jacket with a black cashmere scarf hugging her throat.  
  
"Selina." The girl had been a thorn in his side for many years, eluding his every attempt at capture until finally he gave up. She was in her twenties now, tall and lithe, graceful in stillness where once she had been awkward under scrutiny. She smirked at him and he shrugged, sighing. "Yeah. Can't think of anything to get him. He has such unusual taste, you know?"  
  
The thief the papers called Catwoman nodded knowingly, thinking that the Penguin must have unusual taste indeed to put up with the stiffnecked police commissioner after all these years. But the thought was an affectionate one - standing on opposite sides as they did, she still considered Gordon a friend and a good man. The lines in Gotham had always been blurred.  
  
"What are you doing here?" The question broke through her thoughts, interrupting daydreams of her raucous childhood and contemplation of the jewelry store's weak points.  
  
"Last-minute shopping." She answered sardonically, and he rolled his eyes.

"Sure. Just stay out of trouble, alright? I have dinner with my family tonight."  
  
Selina sketched a bow, crossing her fingers over her heart. "Scout's honor."

"You were never a scout." Gordon chuckled, and jammed his hands deeper into his pockets, shaking his head. "Guess I'd better head home. I'll pick up a nice bottle of wine or something." He looked defeated, but wry; certain that Oswald would not judge him too harshly for his lack of sentimentality.  
  
"Jim, wait." Selina put a hand on his arm, halting him. "What about these?" From her jacket pocket she produced a small box, cracking it open with fingers a little numb from cold. Inside, gleaming against black velvet, was a pair of platinum cufflinks; each set with a deep glinting garnet. They were unique, and staggeringly expensive.

"How much did you pay for these?" Gordon exhaled the question in a plume of warm fog that sounded a lot like awe. At Selina's pointed silence, he chuffed and rephrased. "Right. How much do you want for them?"

Selina laughed. "Call it a gift. I picked them up for Bruce, but they're not really his style."

Gordon nodded, unwilling at this the eleventh hour to look a gift horse in the mouth. No wonder he'd been unable to find the perfect gift - Catwoman had already stolen it. He pocketed the cufflinks slowly, reflecting only briefly on the irony of accepting stolen goods for his husband, the criminal. He and Gotham were like a rough diamond on a beach - the city had worn him down, over time, smoothed out all his sharp edges; but both were all the brighter for having done it. "Well... Would you like to come to dinner, see the boys?"

Selina had already stepped a little away, her spine and pointed bootheels leaning north toward Wayne Manor, though its golden light pouring through large windows couldn't be seen from the heart of the city. She blinked slowly like a cat hearing the call of home, and shook her head with a smile. "No, thanks. I have plans at the Manor. Alfred's making a goose - every year he insists it'll be his last. I'll have a courier bring presents over for the boys tomorrow morning."

Gordon shrugged deeper into his coat and turned for home as well, casting one more curious look back over his shoulder. "If these cufflinks were for Bruce, what will you give him now?"

"I'll give him something better." Selina raised one mischievous eyebrow.

Gordon scoffed a little incredulously. "What could possibly be bet- _Oh_. Nevermind." He waved a hand as if clearing the image from his mind. "Tell them I said hi."

"Will do. Oh, and Jim?"

"Hmm?"

"Pick up a bottle of wine too. He likes a nice _Pinot Noir_." Since he was about to be late for dinner, the tribute wouldn't hurt. The King of Gotham did favor a gracious gesture.

"Merry Christmas, Selina." The fire escape rattled, and he knew she'd made her escape.

"Merry Christmas, Jim." The disembodied voice laughed from above, and was gone.

* * *

The hall bell chimed to announce Jim's arrival as Oswald was removing his own goose from the oven, basting it with care one last time before carving into the crispy, golden skin.

"About time," he huffed without genuine annoyance, removing his apron and stashing it away in the pantry. "Boys, your father's home!"

The twins leapt up from the chessboard they had been bent over, nearly upsetting Harvey's second (alright, second-and-a-half) mug of wassail. He gripped it protectively and glanced from the open-concept kitchen to the front hall. Excited voices could be heard ringing from the high ceilings in merry greeting. 

"Dad! What did you get? Can I see? Let me carry it!" Rom was bounding around Jim like a puppy, relieving him of the packages he'd carried home. In addition to the cufflinks and bottle of wine, he had picked up some games for the boys' Playstation and a set of finely bound books that Oswald had kept on backorder. The city was quiet on Christmas Eve, but shops were never closed to the police commissioner and his family.

"Hi, Daddy." Remus said quietly, helping his father put away his coat as feeling returned to frostbitten extremities. Jim's heart warmed with the bittersweet acknowledgement that his child would someday no longer call him "Daddy" but only "Dad." Rom had already stopped, but Remus had always been the more sensitive of the two. He bent and hugged his sons, mindless of the packages adding cumbersome bulk to Rom, and followed them down the hall to the den. The twins ran ahead of him, stuffing wrapped presents under the tree (which was already approaching critical mass) and exclaiming over the variety of sizes and shapes.

"Welcome back," Oswald said warmly, and for a moment it was just the two of them, that glimmering connection that had always sparked the moment their eyes met. Jim smiled and set the bottle of  _Pinot Noir_ upon the counter. Oswald's pale gaze fell on the offering and he smiled. "Well played."

Jim shrugged, grinning, and retrieved the silverware to finish setting the table the boys had started earlier. "Where's Gabe?"

"Having dinner with his wife."

Jim blinked, setting a salad fork down carefully as if lost in thought. "I didn't know he was married."

"Oh yes, they eloped in the fall. She's a pretty little thing. He says she cooks just like his mother."

Jim hummed, as if satisfied by the news, or accepting its veracity. "Huh. Good for him." Finished with the table, he stepped out again, pulling a chair from its place by the hall telephone to join the others in the dining area. Leaning against the wall to his right was an abstract painting, tasteful but somehow alien, done primarily in shades of grey and blue.

"Where's this from?"

"Oh, Victor had it sent over. I'll hang it in the guest bedroom." Jim's unease regarding Victor was a topic they no longer discussed, but Oswald insisted on maintaining a degree of civility with his longtime employee, who was now semi-retired and pursuing his own interests.

"...Did you send him anything?"

"A set of cutlery." Oswald's tone was so bland it was impossible to detect the presence or absence of sarcasm.

"Oswald."

"What?" Wide eyes gazed innocently at him and Jim decided, in the spirit of Christmas, to drop it.

Further down the hall, a large box wrapped in pinstriped green paper drew his eye. "And who's that from?"

Oswald dropped his voice. "Edward sent it for the boys. It's a chemistry set."

Jim's unease regarding the former forensics tech was more a tickling social aversion than any real assessment of threat. The tall, slender genius seemed harmless enough - he had retired from the GCPD years ago, citing burnout, and spent his days writing textbooks for neurodiverse students and true crime novels. But a chemistry set... "They're going to blow up the house."

"They can use the shed."

"They'll blow up the shed."

"Then we'll build a new shed." Oswald huffed impatiently, brandishing a knife. "Are you ready to carve the goose?"

Jim wrapped his fingers around Oswald's, lowering the blade as he stole a kiss. "Yes, dear."

  
* * *

  
Dinner conversation was an exercise in futility, as voices layered over one another - the boys speculating loudly about what could be hiding beneath the tree in the various bags and boxes, Oswald politely inquiring about friends and acquaintances, Harvey complaining good-naturedly about the desk job that Gordon had left him with after becoming commissioner. At a table with two growing boys and three grown men, the meal was dispatched with little delay and the twins, blinking blearily with full bellies, trundled up the stairs to bed.

"I'll be up in a minute to tuck you in." Oswald called after them.

"We're too old for that, Papa." Rom protested, screwing up his eyes in sleepy protest. Remus merely glanced over his shoulder, making eye contact with Jim. The commissioner nodded, smiling - promising without words that he would come up as well.

Pressing a kiss to his partner's temple, Jim removed himself from Oswald's side and vanished into the kitchen, reappearing with the bottle of wine he had procured and a corkscrew. These he pressed on Harvey, taking Oswald's hand and leading him to the staircase.

"Open that for us while we tuck the boys in, would you old man? There's glasses on the bar."

Harvey accepted the alcohol with relish, looking forward to sampling the excellent vintage. Bottle in one hand, corkscrew in the other, he watched his oldest friend and the mob boss - _businessman_ \- he'd once loathed, climbing the stairs hand in hand to bid goodnight to the twins who called him uncle. He chuckled, turning his back on the scene to pour the wine. "Only in Gotham."

Rom and Remus still shared a bedroom - when offered the opportunity to split up, they had refused, choosing to use the spare bedroom as a playroom instead. Different in many ways, they were twins still, and did not do well when too long separated from one another. Oswald shook out the indigo-patterned quilt and tucked it around Remus, while Jim bent over a mildly protesting Rom and added another pillow to ward off an upset stomach from their large meal.

"Story tonight, boys?" Jim asked, casually perusing the bookshelf.

Rom yawned hugely. "Dad, we're too old." Beside him in his twin bed, Remus appeared sleepy but mildly chagrined.

Oswald scoffed gently. "Nonsense. My mother read to me into adulthood. I find it soothing. There is no statute of limitations on enjoying a good thing."

Jim laid a hand at the small of his partner's back, well-acquainted with the flicker of grief that would pass over Oswald's features whenever he thought of his mother. In their beds, the twins already appeared to be drifting off, dreaming of unwrapped presents and probably breakfast. "We'll read a story tomorrow. Goodnight, boys." Jim said quietly, and clicked on the old penguin nightlight as they left the room. Tucked into his narrow bed beside his already softly snoring brother, Remus smiled and fell asleep.

Downstairs, Harvey had poured a trio of glasses and set them in their customary locations, the three men having gathered for drinks many times over the years in this cozy space. The fire was dying down, and Jim added another log as he passed by, scent of burning cedar a comfortable and homey smell. Waiting on the sofa where the couple sat together, each movement a mirror of the other, were a pair of clumsily wrapped packages that nonetheless had been chosen with care. Jim's was bottle-shaped, with a large bow at the neck to disguise the obvious outline, but when he removed the paper it was indeed a very fine bottle of scotch - the kind of thing that would be a strain to purchase even on a police captain's salary. He glanced up at Harvey, and the other man avoided his eyes, uncomfortable with genuine expressions of gratitude even after all these years. "Harvey, this is great. Thank you."

"Yeah well I'm expecting you to share." His old partner returned gruffly. 

Jim chuckled. "Of course."

Off to the right, almost buried beneath an excessive swathe of tissue paper, Oswald gasped. Jim turned to look as his husband lifted in both hands a luxuriantly soft, deep blue cashmere scarf that was an astonishingly tasteful and thoughtful gift for the King of Gotham. The Penguin accepted it with genuine pleasure, clearly delighted as he immediately wrapped it around his neck, took a sip of wine, and stood. In one swift, awkward motion, he crossed the distance from the sofa to the armchair where Harvey sat, and hugged the other man. With the same jerky motion, he sat back down again, beaming. "It's beautiful! Thank you, Harvey. Truly."

Harvey took another gulp of wassail and made a mental note to take the lady friend that had suggested the gift out on a proper date. Dinner, drinks. Something nice. Jim glanced at the police captain's expression, which was straddling the line between pleased and uncomfortable, and laughed. "Hand me the wine, I'll pour us another round."

Reaching beside the sofa, where the tree's boughs twinkled and glowed and just barely managed to contain the mountain of presents beneath them, Oswald retrieved a large box wrapped in simple white paper with silver snowflakes. He handed it over to Harvey with a shy smile, seemingly already over his demonstrative display of a moment before. "I called the precinct to get your measurements, they had them on file from when your dress uniform was issued. I hope you don't mind."

Harvey eyed him curiously, but when the box was opened all became clear. Inside was a very fine duster, all Italian leather and lined at the collar with warm, soft brown fur - knowing Oswald, probably mink. It was almost too nice for police work - but then again, he had that boring desk job now, and Gotham was a brass-titted bitch in winter. Harvey grinned, shrugging the jacket on and admiring it for a moment before the heat of the room started to overwhelm him. "This is great, C- Oswald. Seriously. Nicest thing I ever owned."

Oswald beamed again, swaying slightly in his seat, a little tipsy from wine and wassail and joy. Never in life had he imagined this pure happiness, this harmony - to be loved and safe from harm, with those he cared for enjoying the same. What a strange world.

  
* * *

  
Morning dawned gently, the drawn drapes on the east-facing windows protecting sleepers from the light until winter birds - cardinals, chickadees - started to sing outside. Harvey was tucked up in the guest room and likely to remain there for some time; overindulgence the Irishman's patented Christmas tradition. The boys were up first, tiptoeing past their parents' bedroom, but nothing escaped Oswald's notice and he opened the door as they passed by, tying a black smoking jacket on over silk pajamas. "Merry Christmas, boys."

"Merry Christmas, Papa!" Remus stopped to smile before tearing off down the stairs after Rom.

"Come on, Jim, I'll make some coffee and -" The doorbell cut off his sentence and, frowning, he tightened the smoking jacket's belt as he padded downstairs in embroidered slippers.

Catwoman's present, as it turned out, was a catered breakfast - a spread so hearty and lavish that it momentarily distracted the boys from the tempting gifts beneath the tree. Never let it be said that the jewel thief didn't know the fastest route to a man's heart. They loaded up their plates with sausages, bacon, pancakes, and all manner of fresh fruit, wolfing the food down at the table as if they had not eaten an equally rich meal there just the night before. Oswald poured a cup of coffee, fixed it to Jim's preference, and with that preternatural ability to detect his lover's presence, handed it to Jim without looking as the other man came down the stairs. They stood side by side, watching the twins eat with matching nonplussed expressions at the buffet table and silent, white-uniformed waiter beside it.

"Selina?" Jim queried, sipping his coffee.

"Selina."

"Selina!" Harvey exclaimed, finally emerging, lured downstairs by the scent of food and his own iron constitution. Having recovered fully from the alcohol, his stomach rumbled loudly as he moved past the couple and grabbed a plate. "Remind me to thank her!"

Oswald poured a cup of tea and stared suspiciously at the waiter for a long moment before being satisfied - by the servant's vaguely alarmed expression - of his harmlessness. "Indeed."

  
* * *

  
The boys received an assortment of toys that boggled the imagination and, over the next few days, would strain Jim's ability to assemble. Clothes, books and other studious and creative supplies were also exclaimed over; especially by Remus, who hoarded the best for his own scholarly pursuits. Exhausted from the festivities of the night before and the morning's excitement, they fell asleep in the afternoon and Jim carried them upstairs to nap in their room. Nearing ten, they were almost too large to carry - almost.

Harvey had left after breakfast, presumably to see his lady friend - pressing his presents on the boys to ensure they were opened first, and wishing his hosts well as he shrugged on his new coat and slipped out the door, blinking, into the sunlight. Jim and Oswald were all at once truly alone, and the impulse to embrace felt habitual and right.

A little shorter than his lover, Oswald tucked his jaw into the crook of Jim's neck and sighed contentedly when the blond wrapped affectionate arms around him. "What a lovely Christmas. Everything turned out so well."

Jim chuckled, the sound reverberating in his chest. "You haven't even opened your present yet."

"I have everything I want." Oswald murmured, content to listen to his lover's heartbeat.

Jim pressed the small velvet box into his hand, pulling back a little so he could watch Oswald's expression.

"Jim, you didn't have to-"

"Are you serious?" Jim scoffed. "You're my husband, father to my sons, I'm not going to cheat you on Christmas. I just hope you like them - I had a little trouble finding the perfect gift."  


Oswald smiled. "You already gave me the perfect gift, but I'm sure these - Oh! Jim, they're beautiful!" He had opened the box while speaking, and his voice tapered away into a tiny gasp and exclamation. "How lovely! However did you find them?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Jim laughed, and though Oswald's natural curiosity prickled at him, he elected to let his husband have his secrets.  


"I'm afraid your gift rather pales in comparison," Oswald said mildly, a tiny smile playing about his lips. From his jacket's inner pocket, he withdrew a small embossed envelope, about the size required to hold a legal document.

"What's this?" Jim asked curiously, opening the envelope. He scanned the document, stormy blue eyes widening as he comprehended what he read but did not believe it.

"It's the deed to the land for that park you wanted built in the Narrows. The city council was giving you such a hard time about getting funding, so I just bought it. Now you can do as you please with the property and... and if they don't like it, they can _get fucked_." The curse came out with a sly smile, profanity rare on pale lips, and Jim looked at his raven-haired lover like he'd ravish him right there before the fireplace. Such a thing was impossible, of course, with two curious boys in the house, but they had a perfectly functional bedroom with a perfectly functional lock. Carefully setting the document down on an ornate side table, he gripped Oswald's hand and dragged him off toward the staircase.

"Where are we going?" Oswald inquired with false guilelessness, as if he couldn't feel the want thrumming beneath Jim's skin.

"Going to show you how much I like your present." Jim growled and, in an uncharacteristically chivalrous gesture, hoisted Oswald over his shoulder in the fireman's carry and bore him unceremoniously upstairs.


	19. Auld Lang Syne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim helps Oswald out of a tight spot. Later, they ring in the New Year together. A gift for the Gobblepot Holiday Gift Exchange to @thesinguin.

After knocking - with an atypical amount of foresight - on the roughly green-painted plywood to ensure there was nothing on the other side, Jim Gordon backed up two steps, braced his shoulder, and slammed into it.

He bounced off, shoulder screaming. Gritting his teeth, he braced his weight again, and threw himself into the boarded-up doorway again. This time the wood cracked, but did not break. As he geared up for a third assault, a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. His eyes caught first on the large gold ring, then on the rugged but somehow gentle features above it, and he lowered his gun from his arm's reflective bend.

"I'll do it, Detective." Gabe said, not unkindly, and Jim stepped aside. Locking his fists together before his barrel chest, Gabe pushed off from his back foot and leveled the green wood with a single powerful blow. Brushing the shower of splinters from his jacket, he held out a hand. "After you."

"Right," Jim muttered, raising his weapon again and peering into the gloom beyond the doorway. All seemed well, so he stepped through, into the empty warehouse. _Gotta spend more time at the gym..._ "Why'd he get it on the first try?"

"Because he is a beefcake," Harvey quipped, breezing past with gun casually pointed before him, "And you are a delicate flower."

"Shut up." Jim snapped back, and disappeared further into the warehouse. Rounding a corner, he barely escaped a bucket of green paint, tipping from above a doorway. Cursing as a small splatter decorated his shoes, he heard an answering laugh from the far corner of what had once been a long loading room.

"Oswald?" He called, _sotto voce._

"I'm here," The Penguin returned, sounding irritated but intact. "We seem to be alone."

The relief that flooded him was inconvenient, and he kept his weapon raised till his searching eyes met Oswald's paler blue. Holstering the gun, he glanced around. Oswald was tied to a chair but otherwise appeared unharmed, if rather vexed. He hadn't even been robbed, gleaming platinum pocketwatch chain spilling from the pocket of his vest.

"What is this?"

"Oh, this?" Oswald asked blandly, rolling his eyes. "This is a prank. A retaliation, if you will. Petty vengeance."

"I've been solving puzzles all day trying to track you down and you're telling me this is a joke?" Jim snarled, small pocketknife sawing through the rope that bound the gangster.

"Not a joke. A riddle - an E. Nygma, if you'll pardon the pun."

"Enigma... Ed did this?" Jim demanded incredulously.

"Mr. Nygma was rather put out that I did not return his feelings for me in quite the same fashion. This is his way of making me sit and think about what I've missed out on."

"Kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment?" The detective reached for his radio, expression twisted in disbelief. "Let me put an APB out on him."

A slim white hand laid over his as it gripped the receiver at his hip. "Let him go."

Jim stared. "...Let him _go?_ "

Rubbing his wrists where the rope had chafed, Oswald rose to his feet, brushing his tuxedo carefully as if he had not been tied to a chair for the last six hours. "Yes, let him go." He raised his eyes to Jim's again, something unspoken and real there. "People can't help who they love. And we all go a little mad during the holidays." He held out his arms, indicating his own physical soundness. "I'm unharmed! Just get me out of here."

Reluctantly, Jim lowered his radio. Without Oswald to press charges, there was nothing they could throw at Nygma that would stick. Breaking into the building might have made for a flimsy trespassing charge, but he knew that as a forensics expert Ed would never have left any admissible evidence behind. Besides, Ed had always been odd, and Oswald <i>was</i> unharmed...

The mob boss in question was checking the time with an exasperated look on his face. "Cutting it a little close, weren't you? I have to be at the club by midnight."

"Seriously? Now you're complaining about _how_ I saved your life?" Jim sounded offended, leading the way toward the exit with a scowl.

Oswald scoffed. "Hardly, detective. Merely a jilted suitor." Dropping his voice, he added, "You should know, you've had enough of them."

"What?"

"Nothing."

* * *

New Year's at the club had always been a big event when it was Fish's domain; but now, it was even bigger. Blue light swept over glittering silver decorations, illuminating the crowd of brightly painted and costumed club kids that had come out in celebration of the evening. Live music made it hard to hear one's companion, and champagne flowed freely. It was the one night of the year that others joined Oswald in his favorite indulgence without complaint at the expense. The appreciation of excess made him feel almost at home, for once.

In a private alcove he kept for his own use, he raised a glass to Jim. They stood on the second floor, half-wall in the narrow, well-appointed space open to watch the dancing crowd below. It was only a few minutes till midnight - Oswald had excused himself immediately upon entering the club, insisting he needed to change his tuxedo and freshen up to play host.

Ever an opportunist, Harvey was surely somewhere down below, a flute of free champagne in one hand and a cute redhead in the other. He never passed up an opportunity to party, regardless of whose side of the fence he was on.

"You know, the clue to rescue you was addressed to me." Jim said absently, sipping his champagne. The warm fizzing alcohol in his belly and the relative quiet of the alcove put him at ease.

Oswald blinked slowly but kept his face neutral, studying the bubbles rising to the surface of his glass. "I imagine so, detective, you work for the police."

"Yeah, I do." Jim took another sip, then looked up, catching Oswald's gaze. "But they weren't addressed to the precinct. They were addressed to me."

"How odd." Oswald mused, looking away. "He must have thought you stood a better chance of solving his riddles than the dullards that surround you. Ed does so hate to be ignored."

"I guess." Jim leaned against the railing, watching the crowd below mill about impatiently as the minutes ticked closer to the clock's apex. "How did you do it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"How did you turn him down? I mean, you had to have given him a reason, otherwise he'd still be trying. I saw him with that girl from the file room, he's like a dog with a bone. Or a telemarketer."

"Ah." Oswald swallowed, found his mouth dry - drained his champagne glass and set it down, fingers resting on the railing to keep from twisting them together. "I told him there was someone else."

Jim eyed him carefully, feeling his pulse flutter a little. He hated himself for his weakness, hated the way he couldn't distance himself from this man no matter how hard he tried. But midnight was only a moment away, and he had made a New Year's resolution to be honest - at least with himself. "And is there?"

"Hmm?"

"Someone else?"

Oswald swallowed, finally meeting Jim's eyes though his placid expression wavered. "Yes."

Jim took a step closer, sliding his hand along the railing. His touch lingered, warm, barely brushing Oswald's fingertips where they met on polished wood. Beneath them, the crowd started to count down the seconds in a drunken haphazard cacophony. The small silver mirror ball, rigged by more imaginative members of Oswald's staff, began its descent. "Who?" He breathed softly, the diminishing space between them electric.

Oswald looked up at him, a tiny quavering smirk a poor attempt to hide his nervousness. "I think you know."

Jim raised two fingertips to the glinting tie pin at Oswald's collar, feeling the rapid pulse beneath it fluttering against the silk and metal. He dragged his touch up over Oswald's throat, pressing beneath his narrow jaw and tilting his head upwards. The ball hit bottom, crowd erupting into cheers as confetti fell like snow.

"Happy New Year." Jim murmured softly, long lashes fluttering shut, and kissed him.

They parted a minute or two into the new year, flushed pink and gasping a little. A firm hand on his hip held Oswald close in an embrace still so new he trembled. Glitter and confetti rested on his high cheekbones, and Jim brushed a silver star from his pale skin with the ball of his thumb. Glancing down, the detective saw his partner raising a glass to him in wry amusement, one arm still around the curvaceous companion he had managed to charm.

A tug at his tie pulled his attention back to Oswald, who was gazing at him mischievously. "How unexpected, Detective."

The glint in ice blue was wicked in intent, and Jim felt his pulse speed up again. "Come home with me and I'll show you unexpected."

Oswald flushed red, biting his lip with wide eyes. "Let me get my coat."

Jim watched him retreat, thinking it was about to become a very happy new year indeed.


	20. Pax Penguina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oswald considers himself a practical man, accustomed to loss - yet some betrayals may fall outside the scope of forgiveness. Can his newest friend convince him to give his oldest one another chance?

"I am Ozymandias," the Penguin lamented glumly, poring over his glass of scotch. When had scotch become his preferred method of intoxication? He had vastly preferred red wine, once - and before that, champagne. A man of tempests and deep waters, the propensity for endless adaptation, mutability, chameleonic survivorship packed tightly into the wiry frame and layered beneath fine silks. He sighed. "Look on my works, ye mighty; and despair." 

His flair for the dramatic, at least, remained ever unchanged. 

Ivy glanced up from the orchid she was delicately tending, her long fingers gentle and skilled in a way she seemed unable to apply to anything else. "What?"

"Nothing." He returned sullenly, downing his drink and pouring another. At her pout, he pressed two fingers between his closed eyes. "I'm tired, Ivy. Ignore my mood."

In an unusually magnanimous gesture, the redhead shrugged and let the perceived slight drop. Instead she nudged the conversation into more dangerous waters, keeping her eyes casually on her plants and her tone light. "I saw Jim Gordon today."

Penguin's visage grew polar as his name, pale eyes detached and frosty as the white-knuckle fingers on his glass. Winter had come to Gotham and he was always cold, these days. Even in Ivy's conservatory, neglected since long before his father's death but balmy and richly fragrant now... He was always cold. Bitter and cold. "That name belongs to a dead man." 

Ivy tilted her head in a way that reminded him she had been a child a few months ago. The thought made him uneasy in a way he couldn't quite catch hold of and quantify. She had been good to him, in her way; in the only ways all of them knew how. It would have meant a great deal to have had a friend like her when he had been young himself. Perhaps if... But as his sainted mother had often said; if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

"You know he kind of did you a favor, right?" Her voice interrupted his thoughts, bringing him rudely back to the present and making him think better of the rather charitable thoughts he had been entertaining for the ginger brat.

"Beg pardon?"

"Killing Fish." Her eyes remained on her plants, movements of the fertilizer pipette even and precise. "He didn't mean to do it; even though he had the virus it was still an accident-"

"You weren't there," Oswald snapped. The ice the girl was treading was over very deep water. 

"From what I've heard," Ivy continued in a huff; "It was a mistake. He didn't hate Fish - he could have hunted her down the minute you let her go but he didn't even try. But Fish..."

"But what?" Oswald barked, on the edge of tears. He had risen from his seat to make an attempt at composure but he was trembling with fury and uncertainty, leaning heavily on his cane. 

"She probably would have killed you."

He gaped at her. "No. We were partners, she - she was proud of me..."

Ivy shrugged, setting down her watering can, her chores complete. "That's probably true. And the fact that she's dead doesn't change what she made you into, what she left behind. I should know." She looked down at the floor for a long moment, biting her lip in memoriam of her own parents, consumed by Gothan's darkness. "But you threw her off a roof into the river. You were her umbrella boy and you became the King of Gotham and then the mayor. You will always be a threat. I'm just saying, she didn't seem like the type to forget that. You said it yourself, love is weakness."

She slipped out, leaving Penguin to stand amongst her plants and contemplate the cost of forgiveness.

Several days later, an envelope arrived by courier for Jim Gordon - not to his already overburdened inbox at the GCPD, but at his home address, slipped into the mailslot in the wee hours while he slept. It was heavy eggshell linen paper, embossed with a thin silver line at the edges and sealed with a dab of royal blue wax embossed with the by now familiar umbrella seal. Inside was a neatly printed card, a VIP invitation to the opening of Penguin's new holding - the Iceberg Lounge. 

Attached was a note, slender flowing script clearly written with a fountain pen.

_James;_

_Every man succumbs to his darkness sooner or later, and every man makes mistakes. I find myself alone at the end of the chessboard and I know you are facing the same herculean task - simply moving forward. If you will allow me, I am willing to let the past rest where it lies; and start again. I offer only what I always have - my utmost trust and admiration; old friend._

_Regards;_

_O.C._

Jim sighed, sinking onto his sofa and pressing his head into his hands for a long moment. Then he rose and poured a drink, accepting the cool-toned olive branch for what it was. Cobblepot was a man who cared about appearances and he would never overextend himself again after all the shame he had suffered at Nygma's hands - and Jim himself. Rebuffing the gangster's friendship, his youthful attraction; had made him feel pure, noble, more suited to the cause he had dedicated himself to fighting. But all that was over now. He had blood on his hands, was a murderer twice over; had hurt more people than some of the criminals he arrested... Destroyed everyone he loved. 

He was soiled, ignoble; but the King sought his council anyway. Wanted him to bend the knee and join the court. So be it. Jim was tired of fighting, had enough enemies without rejecting overtures of alliance and friendship. Had enough guilt without rejecting forgiveness, however tenacious. Don Falcone had his father, and now the Penguin had him. And so the wheel turned. 

His hands were numb, but his heart hammered in his chest, feeling strangely exhilarated as he rummaged through the back of his closet for a suit to wear to call upon the kingpin. Whatever else could be said about Oswald Cobblepot, he was never boring. 

Dressed and ready and lightly armed, the detective stepped outside and locked his apartment door behind him. He was only slightly surprised to see the long black cat waiting for him at the curb, a man bearing an umbrella pin on his lapel holding the door. "Detective Gordon, Penguin is expecting you."

Gordon slid into the darkness and the scent of rich dark leather with a sigh. Time to make peace with the king.

 


	21. Regina Capere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selina has information that Gotham's criminal element needs. Zsasz intends to get it.

Victor liked boys, and Victor liked girls. Victor liked everyone that was different from himself, and most everyone was. Most of all, Victor liked death, and pain; and the fascination of those who were resistant to it. Survivors were the most enticing of all - and the lithe young thing strapped to his cross at the moment was an expert at survival.

His cenobite apprentice had been at her with a flail, her well-muscled back stripped bare to the cruelty of leather and sadism, angry red stripes criss-crossing golden skin. The streets had aged her well, but not like wine, all smoothness and sophistication - more like moonshine, that would burn the hell out of you going down, and blow you the fuck up if you handled it carelessly. He could appreciate that kind of instability.

"Enough," he directed his servant, and the leather-clad woman stopped immediately and stepped back, watching him for further instruction. "Leave us." Obedient to the end, she set the flail down on a mahogany table littered with similar tools and vanished through a door at the back of the room.

He approached the large, sturdy wooden X; St. Andrew's cross set with heavy iron fittings to secure whomever was scheduled to receive his attentions on any given day. Astonishingly, given how long she had been bound there and subject to the ministrations of his subordinate, the figure struggled as he approached and hissed wordlessly.

"There's no need for that," he said amiably. "Just tell me what I want to know and you're free to leave."

The girl spat something incoherent, head hanging between the crossed upper bars, tawny curls tousled from struggle and humidity. He placed two fingers, beneath her jaw, avoiding the snapping teeth, raising her head firmly to look into wide, furious green eyes.

"Sorry, come again?"

"Fuck yourself." Selina snarled venomously.

He raised smooth brows, eyes widening in amusement. "Hmm. Maybe later. But I do get the impression you're not the type to be swayed by pain. At least, not this kind of pain." The assassin glanced dubiously around at the non-lethal techniques his current master had approved for the operation. The little cat was still favored in many circles, and her death or permanent maiming would light more than a few fires. He had been given strict instructions to learn what she knew without damaging her beyond her ability to bear - no easy task. Eyeing her curiously, as one studies an experiment on the verge of transformation, he removed his black leather gloves and fitted jacket, setting them aside.

  
"I find that very interesting." He continued, and left the room. Selina struggled against her bonds, craning her neck to look behind her despite the screaming ache in her muscles and the heaviness in her bones.

"Zsasz! _Zsasz!_ Let me out of here you fucking _fuck!_ "

After an interminable moment, he returned, bearing a small earthenware bowl, plumes of steam curling up from it, and a tiny glass jar. These he set aside, and dipping a soft cloth into the bowl began to - with uncharacteristic gentleness - cleanse her back, warm water stinging the stripes the flail had caused. Selina flinched away from his touch, cursing, the unfamiliar and unwanted contact making her twitch and hiss angrily. Victor merely smirked behind her and continued, dipping the cloth into the water and wringing it out, until her skin regained some of its natural coloring and the water was tinged lightly pink. As the dampness on her skin evaporated, the cool air granting her some relief, she sighed and relaxed almost imperceptibly. Dark eyes, watching her for such minuscule cues, glittered knowingly.

Tabitha Galavan, or _Tigress_ as she had come to be known in the underworld since her brother's untimely and repeated death, was skilled in mental manipulation. She had taken more than one of Victor's playthings and turned them against him. Even the little cat, so resistant to all of life's hardships and brutalities, was marked by her influence. But Tabitha was not the only mindfucker in town. Victor knew how to play the game, the subtle pull and release, the precise balance of pain and reward that taught someone - anyone - to stop thinking and simply _obey_.

Long fingers unscrewed the jar, setting the lid aside as Selina strained to see him over her shoulder and through her riotous hair. He dipped his fingertips into the clear, herbal-scented ointment inside, smearing some over the lines on her back. She swore at him and threw herself against the wood of the cross, worn teak rubbing with a raw sensuality against her naked, abused skin. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"You have to understand, this is nothing personal." Victor commented, continuing on in the same almost companionable tone, and it was unclear whether he meant the torture that had gone before or the unsettling mimicry of compassion now. "We both have a job to do. You mean to keep your secret; and I... well, I mean to get it." He shrugged, smiling a little as he dipped his fingers again into the jar and smoothed the soothing balm across a swathe of tender, trembling rose.

"I'm not getting paid for my end." She spat at him derisively, as if there were any honor among thieves. He merely went on smiling, unperturbed.

"Well. Some of us simply value higher forms of currency." He drew nearer to her, near enough to smell the green-and-floral scent of the ointment; the salt tang of sweat dried on her skin. "But I have to ask - what _is_ the Wayne boy giving you for your time?"

At this, she threw herself backwards, struggling violently against the leather and iron that held her fast. He smirked and leaned into her, one large hand bracing each bound wrist, her fighting form stilling warily within the tall, dangerous cage of his body. "Relax. I'm just curious. Besides, it's not like _he_ could be behind all this." His eyes glittered oddly as he buried his nose in the crook of her neck and inhaled deeply, smirking. _Just a boy with no attachments and a jacket full of weapons? Couldn't possibly be a threat. He'd know._ "I'm just saying. You seem... tense." Slipping on the last word, like a rock gathering momentum as it rolled down a hill, he slid a hand over her the velvet quivering skin of her ribs, down her side, gripped her hips and pulled her hard against himself. His gamble was rewarded when, entirely under protest, her lips parted and she let out a soft gasp. _Bingo._

"Fuck off, Zsasz," she snarled, but the words lacked a certain edge that they'd had in abundance a few moments before. He could feel her guilt and panic in the heavy thud of her heart as he slid his other hand over her ribcage, higher, skirting a soft curve, fingertips light and precise as ever they were until...

She _purred_ , and for a moment he knew why they all called her Cat, as the tiny sound left her lips and her spine arched into him, jaw tilting back, eyes sliding shut - and then he knew it with even more certainty, as she twisted her head at a sharp angle and snapped at him, quick as a snake. He jerked back out of range, chuckling darkly, but kept his hands on her; subtly pleased when she whined in frustration, bitten lip and a pitch too high to really be called a growl. The hand firm on her hip slid over the plane of her pelvis, her flat tummy, flicking open the closure on her leather pants, drawing the zipper down. Lace beneath, and he knew better than to bother asking where she'd gotten them. She squirmed, twisting her hips, pressing tight against the crux of wood to escape him, but his right hand held her firm while his left slipped into her pants, long fingers dipping beneath leather and lace.

The girl stiffened, opening her mouth to protest but swallowing a curse instead. A small frown formed between her brows as his skillful, wicked fingers circled and stroked, movements confident and deliberate. It was shameful, sinful, everything in her rebelled against it - it was _so good_. Her head hung low, a wilting lily, a low moan spilling through bitten lips. Victor smirked, knowing he'd won when her hips started to rock, the taut leather-clad curve of her ass grinding against him as she panted. His fingers were slick, sliding against her hot flesh with perverse ease, when he withdrew; holding himself a vibrating inch away.

"Wh... what the fuck?" Selina snapped angrily, bucking against her restraints. "Victor!" And he could not help but note it was the first time in their long and complicated association she'd _ever_ called him by his Christian name.

"Yes, Selina?" He queried pleasantly. Professional courtesy, after all. He busied himself licking his fingers clean, making sure she caught the movement in her periphery; the high whine she produced raising a bit of his own interest. _Just a bit_. Professional, indeed.

Perhaps Selina had walked the rooftops and alleys and sewers alone for too long. Perhaps she was an unruly child thrown too young into a world that wanted everything from her and offered nothing in return. Perhaps she craved something to fill in the void, burn away the cold. _Perhaps_ lights any number of fires.

"You... You fucking started this," she mewled lowly, unable to actually voice her painful desire. He couldn't blame her, really - not even in bed with the enemy, but strapped to his medieval torture device. Well, different strokes. Victor certainly couldn't judge.

He stepped near to her again, pressing his body to hers, her friction against his lanky, muscular frame distracting in the way that a song no one else can hear or the rattle of distant gunfire is distracting. He blinked slowly, focusing his thoughts once again, sliding a hand over her hip and listening to the hormones in her blood as they bubbled over. "Oh, did you... Did you want me to continue?" He craned to look at her, but at less of a sharp angle than was necessary in reverse, his height making him loom over her like a nosferatu as he stared in artificial blankness. "This is an exchange. You get that, right? You give me something..." Green eyes widened as she took in his meaning, the blend of emotions leaving her nauseated with shock and guilt, dizzy with lust. "And then I give you something."

He expected the experiment to fail, expected her to curse him, buck him off, spit at him like the Cat she was. Instead he watched her buckle, watched the tiny flame of righteous indignation in her sputter and fail. It might smolder somewhere still, beneath the glassy dilation of wide emerald; waiting, later to be rekindled. But for now, by his hands... The white queen lay broken.

_Checkmate._

"It's him..." She breathed, trembling, the words barely a ghost on her lips as she murmured her betrayal. "Bruce Wayne."

He tangled strong fingers in her thick hair, pulling her head back; kissing her like the pawn she'd become as his talented fingers sought out their prize. She whined into his mouth and he allowed her to bite him; even liked the pain, a little - a bit of blood spilled no small price to pay for such a neatly won victory.


	22. Double Jeopardy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim sees a familiar face in the red light district, and cannot help himself. But all is not as it seems, and Oswald must intervene.

This edge of the city was one Gordon rarely frequented. When there were leads, here, to dig up or chase down, he usually let Harvey take care of it. His hedonistic partner was more than willing to take on those tasks that would otherwise knock his halo askew.

So what, then, was he doing; off duty in civilian clothes, nursing a whiskey in this well-appointed little corner of the red light district? Jim was sure he didn't know - or if he did, he was keeping the knowledge carefully concealed even from himself.

Perhaps it had something to do with the slight, lean figure stacking glasses at the far end of the bar. The younger man was smirking, brightly acquisitive gleam in his pale eyes as he chatted up one of the servers, a man about Jim's own height in a black tee and studded collar. The place was murky, low violet light an ambient glow, drifting wisps of sweetly odorous smoke catching the purple hue, stretching and dulling it weirdly. It encouraged the lassitude of intoxication, made the eyes play tricks.

All the same, it was him - or someone very like him. When Jim had first laid eyes upon the club's latest acquisition, he'd gasped aloud, going white as if he'd seen a ghost.

 _The King of Gotham._ Here? Pouring drinks and changing linens in this ignominious hole in the wall? It beggared belief. The sounds alone coming from the upper rooms would have turned the Penguin into a blushing mess; a man who had grown numb to violence still stammering like a schoolboy over the more primal expressions of human nature.

Working here, in this parlor of decadence... Jim couldn't picture it.

He thought, at first, that it was some sort of elaborate disguise - pale blond hair, tousled and untidy, gimlet eyes as shrewd as ever beneath smudged black makeup. A tiny cross tattoo marked the corner of one eye, high on the elegant cheekbone, standing out like a brand on that white, white skin - so damnably familiar. The nose was a little shorter, the way it tapered to a narrow, birdlike point less pronounced. But as he watched the youth rise to his feet, offering a mocking wink to a penniless patron as he sashayed away, Jim's convictions dissipated. _No limp_. Not even the barest trace of pain, of the Penguin's trademark loping walk. The blond head tilted back, unruly wisps catching the dim light oddly as he stretched to set new liquor bottles on the top shelf. His spine unfolded smoothly, limbs lean but strong. Even Oswald couldn't pretend away so crippling an injury.

As he recalled the circumstances surrounding said injury, Jim felt a sharp pain stab him in the guts, somewhere below his heart but above his sinking stomach. He downed his whiskey and slid the glass back across the bar, one finger raised to request a refill. So lost in his mental retracing of old steps and old friends, he hardly noticed who filled his glass - till the voice, so familiar, timbre a little high but somehow disarming all the same, spoke up.

"You look lonely, Jim."

Gordon jumped, eyes snapping to the pale blues watching him, and immediately bristled. "How did you know my name?"

"The infamous James Gordon, rogue detective of the GCPD?" The lookalike drawled, smirking slyly. "Who doesn't know that face? Couldn't believe my eyes when you first walked in here."

"That makes two of us." Gordon muttered, taking a long swallow of his new drink.

"So," and here he lowered his voice, leaning over the bar so close that Jim could smell his cologne - and this, too, was familiar in a way that defied logic, making the drink thud through him low and slow like a drumbeat, making his senses reel. "You looking for a good time?"

Jim stared, meeting the unwavering pale gaze and knowing smirk. That confidence, positively oozing raw sexuality and a knack for making trouble... That wasn't Oswald, either.

Or at least, no side of the gangster that he'd ever seen. "I... No."

"You sure? 'Cause that sounded like a maybe." The lookalike purred laughingly, toying with the stem of a cherry between even white teeth. "And I bet some of the boys upstairs would just love to take a bite out of you."

Jim finished his drink, mouth suddenly dry, and almost immediately regretted the decision as the world started to take on warmer, alcohol-saturated tones. "And if I don't want any of the boys upstairs?" He heard himself say, tone a lazy drawl that he hadn't known his own voice could produce.

"Well, there's just little old me, then." The pale lips stretched in a grin, worldly and salacious, and he winked, straightening up. He jerked his head towards the stairs, indicating his intentions with a laconic shrug in that direction. His body language was more relaxed than the Penguin, more inviting; but the thin, delicate bones, the bright eyes bent on mayhem - those were the same. "Come on, Jimmy. I'll give you a celebrity discount."

Jim found his hand, numb in his lap, taken in a cool, dry grip. He let himself be led away, though everything in the upper halls of his mind - the parts filled with light and thoughts of justice - screamed a warning. The dark underbelly, his selfish and hungry Id, had slid insidiously into the pilot's seat. He let himself be pulled away, following the narrow hips in their snug black jeans up the stairs.

He did not notice his shadow, the one that had been tailing him expertly since he'd left his apartment, slip out of a side door and disappear.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

"He's at the club," the shadow said, voice as smooth and low as the chill on a windowpane at night. Victor Zsasz slid into the back of the limo, flickering illumination from passing headlights casting his sleek, angular predator's face into soft, shifting relief. "He's hired himself some entertainment for the evening."

Already seated in the warm car, Oswald's fingers tightened on his glass of wine but he pretended boredom, appearing only a little unsettled by the information. "Did he?" He glanced away, raising one slim fingertip to his lower lip and absently tracing the curve as he pondered. "My, Jim. How very unusual."

"Not as unusual as the entertainment." Zsasz smirked, a faithful hunting cat on the end of its leash, teeth bared as he worried at the secret like a dead bird.

"Oh?" The Penguin raised one brow, not really wanting to hear much about whatever underworld Adonis (or Castor and Pollux, should a greater appetite crave satisfaction) the detective had taken to bed - in his own gentleman's club, no less. Let him go to the Foxglove if he wanted to dabble in the self-indulgent, Oswald mused resentfully. The Crook and Flail fell under his umbrella, and he thought Jim must have been either willfully blind or deliberately courting trouble to visit.

Zsasz leaned forward and dropped a manila folder onto the kingpin's lap. "I did some digging - never saw this particular jack before, he's a new hire. Turns out the last place that had a photo of him was the records room at Indian Hill." At Oswalds twitch of piqued interest, he smiled wolfishly and delivered the punchline - "And before that, nothing. Like a ghost."

" _Indian Hill?_ You're sure?" The Don asked, something like unease creeping up his spine, tapping a warning across his shoulderblades.

"Oh yeah."

Oswald flipped open the folder, glancing through several pages of heavily redacted notes before he found a full headshot, 8x10, its subject looking into the camera with an expression that promised trouble. The photo had clearly been taken for clinical purposes, for use in identifying patients - or test subjects, he thought with a shudder - but the young man in it was smirking secretively; looking as if he knew his place in the world and all he wanted from it and intended to take it by any means necessary.

Oswald could relate. After all, the face staring back at him from beneath a shock of pale blond hair looked virtually identical to his own. How strange...

 _Strange indeed_. He swallowed, suddenly in Arkham all over again, subjected to all manner of tests and tortures at the manipulative whim of his captors; an army of monsters coming to life quietly beneath his feet.

_An army of monsters?_

"We need to go." He said abruptly, thrusting the folder and unnerving photograph away from himself. "Instruct the driver to take us to The Crook and Flail. Now."

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

The upper rooms were no better lit than the space downstairs, but up here a low crimson-tinted light throbbed through the dark, eddying curls of incense seeping from beneath doors and through beaded curtains to make the air heavy and sweet. Jim allowed himself to be led, complacent as a sleepwalker, to one of the rooms with a sturdy door at the far end of the hall. The blond tailing him shut the door and locked it behind them.

"What- what's your name?" The cop demanded, words caught in his throat.

"Does it matter?" His companion acted the coquette, turning his back as he stripped off the patterned grey tee that hid his narrow chest and compact musculature from view. Expanse of pale skin bared, a few more tattoos were revealed to hungry eyes, including a simple and somehow sinister black star branded over his left pectoral. "I could be anyone."

"I just want to know, alright?" Jim growled.

Unruffled, the prostitute laughed. "People call me _dollface_." He tilted his head playfully, long dark lashes lowered. "'Cause I'm so damn cute."

Gordon scowled. "Fine. Doll."

Doll shrugged, invading the taller man's space, indicating the bed behind them with a jerk of his head towards the towering four-poster. "So you gonna get comfortable or am I gonna have to do everything myself?"

Jim paled, but high spots of color accentuated his cheekbones, painting his features with embarrassment. "I..."

"Relax, detective." The blond smirked. "I'll take good care of you."

Disarmed thusly, Jim submitted to the light, cool hands placing pressure on his shoulders, and sank into the bed.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  
An immediate hush fell over the main room when Oswald made his entrance, all eyes on the front door. It wasn't often the King visited The Crook and Flail, and never with his executioner in tow. Wait staff and entertainers paused, eyeing the pair warily. The Penguin was not known for keeping his temper in check; and where Zsasz walked, death followed.

"The keys, Ryan," Oswald demanded of the tall, more muscular blond now working the bar. Golden-haired demigods were a popular flavor and much in demand by the club's usual patronage.

"Which, sir?" The barkeep asked hesitantly, unsure if the club's owner was here to check the books or conduct a raid.

"All of them." The kingpin snapped, extending one white hand over the bar, palm up expectantly. A master set of keys, set on a silver ring, appeared instantly. "Which room did Jim Gordon go into?"

"G-gordon?" The barkeep swallowed, eyes darting from Oswald to the lethal shadow behind him. Obeying his master was all well and good - one didn't get far in Gotham without bending to the mob, eventually, one way or another. But having a cop murdered on the premises was an excellent way to ensure all of them were shut down and locked up tighter than a virgin the night before her wedding. "He- he's not here, sir..."

"Victor."

At the Don's command, the assassin sprang forward, gripping the collar of the barkeep's shirt with one fist and jamming the barrel of his pistol into the other man's gaping, astonished mouth.

"When I give the order, my very helpful associate is going to liberate you from all earthly concerns." Oswald informed his wayward employee pleasantly through gritted teeth. "Unless, of course, you'd like to reconsider your position on client confidentiality."

Eyes rolling frantically towards the top of the staircase, Ryan nodded as well as he could manage with the oily steel of the gun clacking against his teeth.

"Very well. Victor, let him speak."

Zsasz looked a little put out, easing the hammer up on the gun with the recalcitrant slowness.

"Victor."

The assassin huffed, pulling his pistol out of the shorter man's jaws with a looming glare. "Fine."

"You were saying?" Oswald queried pleasantly, though he itched to grip the taller man, drag him down and shake him for adding unnecessary delay.

"Upstairs, the room at the end of the hall."

"Thank you."

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Sly aquamarine watched him, shimmering pools of knowing sin that gave a good impersonation of innocence; the kind of eyes he could fall into - those were the same, staring into him from behind plush black lashes. With a greater than average confidence, long, thin hands caressed him, pressing him into the soft duvet; murmuring the endearments Jim had never allowed himself to yearn to hear. The detective melted like metal in a furnace beneath Doll's sensuous attentions; something in the angles and planes of the younger man's face and slender body burning down his spine in a rush like wildfire.

"Jesus," he gasped, his cock standing at attention in pressed black trousers, harder than he'd been in recent memory. "Fucking christ."

Doll licked his lips, smirking salaciously as he slithered with that disconcerting ease to the foot of the bed. "Uncomfortable, detective? Let me take care of that for you."

His hand slid up Jim's thigh to rub through the fine placket of his pants, but the cop's hand clamped over his, suddenly firm, dark eyes glaring.

"For the love of god, _don't_ call me detective."

"What shall he call you, then, Jim? _Old friend?_ " And for a moment, normally sharp mind fogged with lust and deprived of oxygen, Jim was perplexed as to why his paid paramour would be referring to himself in the third person, so familiar was the tone. But there was something particularly _familiar_ , something _polar_ , in the scathing inquiry, that he stiffened; eyes rising slowly to the door - once securely locked, now blatantly ajar.

Aquamarine met his gaze once again, but these eyes were furious, glossy with repressed rage, set in a face white and tight as a noh mask. Black hair as dramatically coiffed as ever, that flawlessly tailored suit - and of course the trained assassin, aiming a gun at the dead ringer sprawled between his thighs. Doll smirked lazily, lasciviously; and Jim had the sudden urge to shove him off, cover himself up, somehow hide what was left of his pride from Oswald's rapt and disapproving scrutiny. He sat up, raised both hands to do so - and it was then that he realized the prostitute, who had the Penguin's eyes, also had the point of a butterfly knife pressed to his femoral artery.

It looked very sharp.

"You're a really easy mark, Jimbo," Doll informed him conversationally, tone not at all like the lilting purr he had used to lure the lonely and bitter detective into bed.

"He really is." Zsasz commented - helpfully or unhelpfully, depending on perspective. Though his tone was friendly enough, the barrel of his gun never wavered from the blond head it was trained upon.

"Persistent, though." Jim sneered with false bravado, feeling a bit of headrush now that his erection had faded entirely and adrenaline pumped through his veins.

Doll shrugged, barely a twitch as he kept his awareness on all three men in the room and the blade steady in his hand. "Maybe. But so am I. Just a nick and you're dead in three minutes. The paramedics won't even finish jacking off in less than ten. I was sent here for a reason, and I think we both know I'm not leaving without carrying it out."

"You're not leaving at all." Penguin warned darkly, and Zsasz shifted ever so slightly, waiting, a vulture scenting battle.

The limber prostitute rolled his eyes. "You're just jealous he prefers blondes, _Pengy_. The Professor told me I'd be a superior specimen." The Penguin flinched, just barely, blinking and glancing away lest his bitterness show in his pale gaze. Resolved though he had been to never again let love taint his ambition; it was difficult to let rejection once again slap him so publicly in the face. But at least his suspicions had been confirmed - this was one of Strange's abominable creations, sent to make his - and presumably everyone else's - life miserable.

Doll stretched, as if to show off his superior physique, undamaged leg and supple back a source of torment for the mob boss, and Jim gritted his teeth and pounced. The knife sank into his flesh as the would-be assassin cursed, but only a little - a grazing wound. Springing forward, Jim knocked the young double off the bed and pressed him to the floor, beating him into submission with perhaps a bit more savagery than the slight form demanded. Victor stepped in at a nod from the Don, binding the black-eyed youth securely and efficiently and leading him away. _One never knows when such a thing will be useful. I must remember to send Strange a thank-you card._

Once alone, Oswald hauled Gordon to his feet with surprising strength, though it seemed to take everything out of him; for once he stood nose to nose with the detective, he could only breathe through softly parted lips, staring with some unspeakable intensity. Gordon was, predictably, the first to break the silence, clumsily fumbling for words that could not erase what had been done or witnessed.

"Look, I... Shit!" He jerked, glancing down at his inner thigh where the assassin's blade had marked him, leaving a tiny slash in the fabric of his pants. He moved to grip the muscle there with one hand but found Oswald's hand pressing the flesh instead, cool touch impersonal with concern, applying pressure and assessing the depth of damage. The cut had missed his artery but the tiny superficial wound was still bleeding freely, bright scarlet coating Oswald's palm as he pressed a trembling hand to it. The red wetness made him a little panicky, the old fear at the idea of Jim being hurt fluttering up in his gut like the ghosts of long-dead butterflies. But he ignored it, gripping the detective's collar and pulling him down into a claiming kiss, thumbing the taller man's trousers open and freeing his length. Jim's erection raged to life again as the gangster's lips crashed into his, inexperienced and raw but demanding, furious with him for daring to accept a substitute and for once entirely unafraid to show it. When he slid the hand slicked with blood down over the head of Jim's cock, the detective groaned and thrust up into his grip, red-smeared head dripping precum over the gangster's encircling fingers.

Jim reached out behind himself and shoved the door shut, his shoulderblades slamming against the wood as Oswald backed him into it, teeth nipping at his throat, lips sucking hard enough to leave a purple lovebite that his GCPD suit wouldn't quite hide. Oswald's grip was snug, punishing, setting a fierce rhythm as he hissed in the detective's ear.

"A clone, Jim? _Really?_ A _boy_ with _my_ face? Did you think that he could _do it_ for you? That it would be as _good?_ Hmm?" Jim whined, unable to catch his breath, but Oswald was relentless, slotting his hips so that he could rut in a slow, grinding rhythm against the other man's thigh. The beleaguered cop lasted an embarrassingly short time, feeling like a teenager and flushing red from crown to collarbone as he felt his orgasm crashing inevitably over him. The added friction, feeling the filthy sensation of being used as a frottage toy for Gotham's kingpin as said crime lord shamelessly jerked him off, shoved him brutally over the edge. He came with a cry, spine arching against the unforgiving hardwood door as thick white jets coated Oswald's slim hand and his own clothing. Panting for a moment as he mastered himself, the Penguin withdrew, denying himself satisfaction for the sake of gravitas. He withdrew an embroidered linen handkerchief from his waistcoat, easily worth a working stiff's weeklong salary, and casually cleaned his fingers; tossing the ruined fabric to an equally ruined Jim when he was finished.

"If you wanted it, all you ever had to do was ask." He said mildly, picking up his silver-headed cane, and loping out with all the dignity of a king.

Jim gaped, a little dazed by the entire encounter; mightily resolved to never visit the red-light district again.


	23. I Don't Care What You Think

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selina and Zsasz have a chance encounter in an alley at twilight. All does not go as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you would some insight into the background of this story please see my work "Regina Capere" here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/4915075/chapters/27569415

Grey and damp, the alley between the two echoed with the searing crack; nearly as loud as a gunshot. The stinging tickle on his face was so foreign as to be almost alien, and he raised gloved fingertips to his cheekbone, pulling away wet leather and looking at the sticky gleam, ruby on black, in disbelief.

She'd cut him.

She'd ** _cut him_**.

"Oh," Victor muttered, wiping the blood away on the back of his gloved hand, purposefully ignoring the way something in him ignited at the sting and the copper-sweet scent of it mingling with the wet-pavement, ammonia and old-newspaper reek of the alley. His lean profile, all muscle and black leather holding his weaponry in place, turned to face her; and for the first time since she had spotted him the girl who was toying with the idea of calling herself _Catwoman_ quailed... Because he was laughing. Blood on his face, eyes large and dark and strangely naked; shaking his head with a low, pleasant chuckle that sounded like the warning rumble of the jaguars at the Gotham Zoo. "You shouldn't have done that."

And Selina believed him.

She straightened her back, bracing her stance with legs slightly parted, and snapped the whip that her newest mentor had gifted her once more, gathering momentum in the heavy leather coils. She arced it around her body with an expertise that showed off her natural talent, sending its stinging tip towards his exposed face once more...

And Victor sidestepped neatly, feeling the stretch of leather against leather as he raised one hand and gripped the end of the whip, yanking her forward, stumbling, over the slick pavement. "A bullwhip?" He drawled amiably, even as the fist that had been holding her weapon relinquished it in favor of her throat. He circled it in long fingers and squeezed, pinning her arms at her sides in a tight embrace, so much physically _larger_ than she, taller and stronger and always, _always_ in control. She struggled, but in the way a butterfly who has already seen and understood the pin struggles - a pretty thing, who has been through all this before. Tears sprang to wide green eyes, flecked with amber; and he smiled, tip of his tongue running over even white teeth. "That's a little impractical, don't you think?"

The glove on her throat was the one that had touched his face but a few moments before, and it left a smear of blood on her cream-and-honey skin; marking her. Tangling her curls in his fist; he dragged her head back, hardly concerned that she would resist. They both remembered his St. Andrew's cross, and the way his name sounded filthy in her mouth.

He licked her, hot tongue tasting the metal of his blood against the salt of her skin and finding that it was good. He smirked against her pulse, feeling her press ineffectually against his chest, one of her hands growing momentarily curious about his gun before his teeth found the shell of her ear and bit down sharply. She jerked and moaned softly, cursing him as she raised both hands in a defensive gesture. He chuckled, that low rumble again; hot in her ear and sending a shudder of feeling through her - mingled want and self-loathing; in equal parts. A dash of fear. Shaken, not stirred.

Perhaps a little stirred.

"Besides," he purred, and Selina whined, fighting harder when she felt the rough scrape of braided rawhide against her wrists as he bound them behind her back with a coil of her own whip, "If you wanted to play around with leather, you could have just stopped by the compound."

The jab, calculated and accurate, stung like a slap; but she had no time to reflect as he forced her to her knees on the alley floor, night deepening around them; tall buildings blotting out the sun as rush hour traffic on Gotham's filthy streets added its miserable cacophony to the symphony of the night. Another loop of the whip went around her throat and his boot between her shoulderblades and she was scrabbling on the pavement, scrambling to drag herself to her feet despite his pressure on her back and her obliterated balance. He chuckled and released her, casually flipping the whip so that the coil around her neck dropped free, harmless as a string of pearls. "Thought you liked it rough?" The slightly elevated beating of his heart had the cut on his face bleeding afresh, and he dragged his thumb across it, painting her full lips; crimson and black leather.

She turned her face away, brow creasing in revulsion, but her tongue darted out against her will and lapped at the bittersweet taste of him, her teeth aching to take a bite. He gripped her jaw in gloved fingers, forcing her to meet his eyes as she knelt on the pavement, crouching to look at her, head cocked curiously as he studied her full lips painted red, her wide eyes, the flutter of her pulse in her bare and straining throat.

It would be easy, to have her there; to leave her wrists bound, to put his gun to her head and force her to suck him off. There was even a certain eroticism in it - he was sure she would be good, could imagine his cock disappearing behind those plush, pouting lips; the green eyes welling up when she choked on his size and vitriol left unspoken. She liked control, even liked the violence, a little - had grown too accustomed to it to have no taste for it.

But... It was too easy.

He shrugged, letting her go with a winning smile and dropping the handle of the whip on the ground at her feet, the loop binding her wrists falling free. "Another time, maybe."

"W-what the fuck?" She demanded, an echo of previous encounters. Zsasz somehow kept her guessing, an enigma wrapped up inside of a death wish.

"You'll be back." He winked.

"Bruce-"

Victor smirked, only white teeth and glimmering eyes, streetlight on the barrel of a gun as he paused at the end of the alley. "What, you'll tell him?" He melted in the shadows, not even bothering to meet her gaze. He knew her mind. "I dare you."

Selina stood in the dark as the evening fog rolled in, hugging herself, fingers twisting leather coils like the Gordian knot in her chest. Finally she ascended to the rooftops, and began the long and bitter journey home. 


	24. As Long As It's About Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stormy night, another brush in an untoward place - two dangerous people who have got to stop meeting like this. Does Zsasz have a weakness for the alley Cat?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continued from "I Don't Care What You Think": http://archiveofourown.org/works/4915075/chapters/27634200

He was a solitary man, but seldom alone. From sunrise, which was met with a rigorous physical regimen few had ever or would ever witness, to the silent black hours after midnight, which likewise generally belonged to only him - the hours between the two were busy, a seemingly constant clamor of those who demanded an audience; tasks which required his special and manifestly unique attentions.

It was something he had grown accustomed to, something he had been groomed for since Don Falcone had plucked him from the orphanage at the tender age of thirteen; a skinny boy in a baggy wool turtleneck, black-eyed and sallow-skinned and already showing what the elders in the family called promise. He had been raised to serve, to be constantly at beck; a willing tool in stern hands. Yet he had never complained, and never would. Talent cries out to be used. 

His current master had proven a little more eccentric than most; and some would say too young and reckless for the job. But Victor did not judge, merely served. Shadows do not have opinions. Still, the recent upheaval in Gotham's criminal underground had kept him a busy man all week, cleaning up loose ends and putting out fires before they could inconvenience his superiors. Typically in such a circumstance, he would allow his cenobites to tend to his more earthly needs - they, too, had been trained to serve. As the evening wore on and he completed his rounds, checking the weapons inventory in the arsenal kept in the basement and updating the target list on his personal computer, he found the constant presence of his accompanying subordinates distracting and unwelcome. Irritable was an emotion so unfamiliar to him he at first failed to recognize it; pausing in his pacing of the compound's ground-floor security office and blinking slowly as he stared into the middle distance, analyzing. When the heavy feeling settled over him again, prickling and unpleasant as that oversized turtleneck all those years ago, he twitched his shoulders, cocking his head to one side and fixing a gleaming, dangerous eye on the two cenobites flanking the door. 

"Leave me."

They hesitated, for evenings were the time when their presence was typically required, for one pursuit or another. 

"Now." At the barest shift of his body; not even forward momentum but merely the suggestion of such, they lowered their eyes and retreated, leaving the room empty and echoing with the sound of an angry, late-summer thunderstorm rolling in. The scent of ozone crackling through the open window suited his mood. He shut it, latched it; and slipped from the manor out into the beginnings of rain. 

 

~~~~~~~

 

The tap of her bootheels against the pavement was almost silent against the the susurration of falling rain; hood drawn up to protect her unruly curls and the black leather jacket and dark denim hugging her frame and making her one with the shadow of the alley. Rooftops and alleys - her natural habitat. This territory, however, came with an infestation - the proliferation of a non-native species, a group of young toughs with hungry eyes and dully gleaming weapons who materialized from cracks in the crumbling buildings like the rats they were. Selina curled her lip.

"Leave me alone. Please."

They declined, as she'd expected. Something in her, a smoldering aggression, a subtle greedy violence that had been simmering since her last altercation in an alley, had been hoping they would. Had been, perhaps, seeking just such an opportunity as she slipped through the night, seeking out the darkest corners of Gotham she could find.

Despite any predictions to the contrary, she had developed a certain finesse with her weapon of choice; and her prowess in hand-to-hand combat continued to improve as she used the more unsavory elements of the city's criminal element as her nightly punching bag and stepladder to better things. These particular specimens were no different, no tougher or more resourceful than the last - or at least, so she had assumed; till she saw the largest rise from where she'd left him on the pavement, a small pistol rising in his grip.

Her limbs felt heavy, the sounds of the city at night suddenly falling on deaf ears. For the space of a heartbeat - too long, she would berate herself later - she could do nothing, all the quick reflexes and natural-born talent on which she prided herself abruptly deserting her. Wearing the ugly smug expression of a mediocre man enacting petty vengeance on a woman, her opponent cocked the hammer back on the pistol. And with a dull, hollow thud that echoed off the high walls around them, a bloody hole appeared between his eyes and he crumpled to the ground. 

Blinking rapidly, not trusting her notoriously excellent eyesight in the rain even as the downpour tapered away to evening mist; Selina whipped around, fists up in a defensive posture. Behind her, Victor Zsasz stood beside an open doorway, looking supremely unconcerned. He was calmly unscrewing the silencer from the barrel of his semiautomatic, tucking the highly illegal weapon modifying device into his snug jacket with a businesslike air. "You missed a spot."

Saved her. _**Zsasz** saved her._ Knowing it made her feel relieved and furious and a little sick to her stomach. It was not the first time she had found herself in a position in need of rescue; and each time there was a strong flavor of bitterness about it - Selina Kyle did not fit well into the role of damsel. And this, this was... _Zsasz_. She scowled, coiling the long cruel bullwhip and securing it at her hip. It was a different kind of feeling altogether from being assisted by Bruce Wayne because she knew what kind of man he was - or rather, didn't know. No heart on his sleeve, no heart at all as far as she could tell; nothing but cold eyes and black leather and enough charm to light a stick of dynamite with. She crossed her arms and stared him down, ignoring the way her stomach clenched when he smirked crookedly back, holstering his gun. "Thanks, I guess."

"Don't mention it." And just like that he was gone, more adept at prestidigitation than she ever was, and she for once knew keenly what it felt like to have someone vanish in the midst of a conversation, always getting the last word.

It irked her to no end.


	25. Two of A Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selina pays a visit to the Mayoral Compound to hunt down a certain assassin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For NoelleAngelFyre.

No rain, tonight.  
  
The sky was clear, stars glittering sharp as a blade as she climbed past the city limits. The full moon stared down and dogged her footsteps, keeping pace no matter how swiftly she moved, prowling through manicured lawns and deftly avoiding gatehouses and sleeping guard dogs. The wealthy manors on the outskirts of Gotham were slumbering giants, flush with plunder but deadly if startled awake. But it wasn't plunder that brought her before this particular giant; clearing the wall with practiced ease, creeping across the expansive grounds like a snake in the grass, moonlight in her veins. A silver talon, inlaid with rubies and formerly the prize showcase piece of an antique jeweler on Main Street, gleamed on the forefinger of her right hand. Ever vigilant, she gently pried open the lock on a large bay window, pressed the pane inward, and slipped inside.  
  
Breaking into manors was Selina's bread and butter; she had been doing it since childhood, and had ample practice slipping in and out unseen. This was no exception, though the underworld kingpin's compound was a great deal less welcoming towards street urchins in leather than Wayne manor ever had been. She'd had to avoid armed guards and cameras when she climbed the wall; and listen for the snarl of slavering Dobermans as she crept across the lawn, adrenaline like metal in her mouth. Though it was balmy outside, rainy early spring turning slowly to summer; there was a fire lit in the drawing room she'd climbed into, and she unconsciously drew near to the crackling warmth, her eyes attracted to the shift and play of flame and shadow. The cloying heat and the waning of adrenaline made her feel weightless, for a moment. Perhaps that was why she didn't hear, sense, the uneven footstep, clack of a cane on polished hardwood.  
  
"Little Cat," greeted the cool, meticulously polite, unfortunately familiar tenor. Selina cursed herself and turned to face the King of Gotham, whose home she had recently invaded. "Not so little anymore. This is an unexpected visit." He raised a brow in the direction of the still-open window, the lock slightly scratched from the talon on her finger.  
  
  
Selina tensed, hand going automatically to the coil of leather at her hip, but the Penguin raised a hand. "No need for that, Miss Kyle. We're all friends here." To indicate his harmlessness, he smiled charmingly, one hand on his cane, the other extended magnanimously at his side, empty of weaponry. But there were others under the umbrella to do the crooked king's violence for him - Ivy, with her perfumes and poisons, was doubtless wandering about somewhere waiting to earn her keep and prove her worth. Selina couldn't entirely put it past her. Or worse... she swallowed. _Zsasz._ The blood rose to her face even as something heavy and cold settled in her chest, feeling an awful lot like dread.  
  
"Tell me, little Cat," Oswald queried politely, clearly growing impatient with her silent staring as he leaned forward a bit, pale eyes piercing. "How may I be of service?"  
  
"I'm just here to see someone." Selina said shortly, looking askance.  
  
"Oh?" The gangster replied. "You understand I cannot let you simply wander the compound freely in the middle of the night. You will disturb our residents." His smile was beneficent, and it was easy to see how he repeatedly charmed the press and many of the more humble citizenry.  
  
" _Victor Zsasz._ " She hissed, eyes narrowed, hands balled into fists at her sides as if she would dearly love to scratch him. "Where. Is. He."  
  
The crime lord's posture relaxed, leaning back once more on his cane, every inch the chessmaster who has won another match. _Well, well. How very interesting._ "The hall just behind you; follow it to the end, first door on the left. You'll likely find it locked, however. I'm not sure if that will pose a problem for you." He smirked. There was no harm in letting the girl have a little peek. After all, Victor was more than capable of taking care of himself.  
  
Selina stalked past him with a huff, ignoring his self-satisfied expression. Everyone in this place was so damn _smug._  
  
~~~~~~~  
  
He had always been a light sleeper. Late to bed and early to rise. Victor required very little rest to function at peak performance; and often dismissed his attendants from his suite and worked late into the night alone. On this particular evening he had retired early in just such a manner, but stretched his long frame out onto his expansive mahogany four-poster with a sigh, the files on his desk closed but incomplete. On occasion, his single-minded pursuits were stymied by timing or circumstance, and there was naught to do but wait; a predator in his lair, saving his strength for the hunt to come. He shut his eyes against the light of the moon spilling through the slit in the heavy drapes, one arm over his head, the other bent at his chest, hand at his heart, counting his mortal heartbeats. The cadence lured his mind away from mundane concerns, numbers and names and plans, down into the darkness where he preferred to dwell. His breathing evened, tension slowly draining from lean muscle; consciousness sinking ever further...  
  
And then he heard it. At first he thought it was an anomaly, the last restless muttering of an active brain, the click of brass and wood, scrape of leather and rubber against marble like a whisper in his mind. But it wasn't. He knew it with a certainty like a gun in his hand. But he remained still, eyes closed, form unmoving as a corpse, save for his breathing; deep and even.  
  
Selina picked the lock and entered the room with the most care she had ever evinced, treading like a ghost upon the marble floor, lips parted softly and barely breathing, eyes wide to take in every bit of light and shadowed outline. Though the hall had been dark, the suite was darker; spartan parlor opening to a large chamber in which rested a massive sarcophagus of a bed. It looked sturdy; first impressions always the truest, and heat rushed up into her face and down over her collarbone. She blinked, a momentary misstep, the outer edge of her boot brushing against the floor in an audible drag as the sole left the marble. She cringed, trapezius drawing up in an instinctive, primal desire to protect her vulnerable neck, but no attack was forthcomng; no red laser sight zeroed in on her chest. And, as her eyes finally adjusted fully to the gloom, she spotted her target.  
  
She could have easily overlooked him, but once she had set eyes on him he was impossible to unsee - a characteristic that seemed to be a defining trait. He was asleep, a position that frankly astonished her - for a moment she could only stare, green eyes wide in the sliver of moonlight, gazing at his supine form. He was fully clothed, stretched out as if merely in meditation, breathing even and steady. She uttered, deep in her soul, a silent prayer to whatever divine or infernal forces had rendered him thusly oblivious; profoundly unaware of her presence... _If he knew, I'd be dead by now._  
  
Victor steeled himself for an attack, yet none was forthcoming. The intruder, light on their feet, paused in the doorway - hesitating? Assessing the situation? Surely no one had ever had a better shot at him. Vibrating with tension, he reached toward the doorway with his other senses, listening hard for the sound of breathing, for the scent of aftershave or perfume or... _leather._  
  
_Selina._  
  
The intruder in question meanwhile approached the bed, but not directly; as perhaps a contract killer on a mission would. She edged along the perimeter of the room, skirting the scarce furnishings carefully, fingertips skimming the air millimeters above the surfaces she strove to cautiously avoid. She crept up to the bed cloaked in shadow, oblivious to the way Victor's breathing paused, just for a moment, when her silhouette shuttered out the moonlight falling across his face. She slithered up the headboard like a snake, and as she had suspected, the heavily built bed was sturdy and bore her easily and without creaking complaint. Bracing her weight between strong legs and gripping the canopy bar overhead with one arm, she lowered herself carefully, graceful as an acrobat, till she was almost nose-to-nose with the assassin; breathing in the air he exhaled. Her free hand extended, gleaming claw catching the moonlight as she again hesitated, considering, her head cocked to one side.  
  
Beneath her, dark eyes opened. "Hi."  
  
Selina gasped, her balance faltering, and in that moment of swaying vertigo Victor struck. Gripping her by the throat, he pulled her down and pinned her to the bed; long body maneuvering with impossible swiftness, straddling her struggling form and batting her slash away from his face, pinning down her taloned hand.  
  
"If I let go, you can't scream," he warned, squeezing lightly, ignoring how good it felt to have her throat under his fingers and watch her pupils dilate the way he'd always _known_ they fucking would. "No one would come anyway." He raised smooth brows at her, expectant and waiting.  
  
Selina glared at him, all the venom of a thousand curses in her scathing narrowed gaze, but knew it was truth and so nodded shallowly against the confining curve of his hand.  
  
He slid his grip from her throat, pinning her free arm above her head like its twin, and stared down at her. "So, Miss Kyle," he drawled, all charm and warm weight atop her, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"  
  
"How long have you been awake?" She hissed resentfully, hands balled up in anger beneath the locking pressure around her wrists.  
  
"I was never sleeping." He answered truthfully, a sly smirk curving his lips in an expression that was more playful than dangerous. He'd been teetering on the edge of consciousness when her slender pick had raped the lock. A few moments longer and... _Well._ She may have gotten closer before he sensed her presence.  
  
Selina squirmed, arching and wriggling her hips in an attempt to gain leverage at her center of gravity, and his smirk intensified. "Your boss saw me," she blurted, tone aggressive and brassy; too obviously a bid at distraction but the only card she presently held. "You should worry about who you're working for. He let me walk right in." A slight embellishment.  
  
"Did he now?" Victor was outright grinning, eyes narrowed, every inch the wolf about to swallow the rabbit. "That's very interesting. I can't imagine what he must have been thinking. You're so... _threatening._ " His tone strained on the word, as if he fought to rein in his mirth; his would-be bane effectively neutralized on the slightly rumpled, cobalt, 800-thread-count Egyptian bedsheets beneath him.  
  
The part of Selina that felt his weight on her as a persistent ache between her thighs preferred to submit, to turn her face to the side and shut her eyes against his casual sarcasm; already drowning in shame from the pull in her blood that had drawn her here in the first place. The part of her that had spent nights sleeping under bridges, in abandoned buildings; stealing to fill her empty belly and howling heart, fighting for position and respect and survival from the tender age when most girls had been comfortable in their slumber parties and classroom squabbles - the bitter, feral wrath born from every one of those nights _refused._  
  
She bucked up fiercely, throwing her shoulders hard to the left, and as Victor lost his balance for a mere moment she wrenched her armored right hand free and left a long, shallow slash from his cheekbone to his jaw.  
  
He went rigid above her, grunting as if she'd knocked the wind out of him though the wound was superficial and the assassin no stranger to pain. His eyes widened and he seemed to be looking through her rather than at her; gaze unfocused. Selina was as quick as her nickname would suggest, taking advantage of the opportunity to seize the upper hand and topple the tall man onto his back, gleaming claw already at his throat as he landed with a soft thump against the goosedown pillows. It really was a very nice bed.  
  
" _Fuck,_ " he mumbled, lips softly parted and pale as Death. He gripped her leather jacket, she assumed in an attempt to drag her off of himself, and braced her thighs against such an assault. Instead, he pulled her in close, dark eyes blazing. "Please."  
  
_Zsasz begging?_  
  
" _Do it again._ "  
  
Selina stilled, relaxing onto him as she studied the dark glimmer of his hooded eyes, not at all oblivious to the way his hips rolled up to meet her as her thighs eased their straining tension. "Are you _enjoying_ this?" She demanded mockingly, the old familiar scathing sneer sliding into place, haughty derision tugging at her curls as she cocked her head to one side.  
  
"Don't pretend you aren't wet for me under all that leather," Zsasz snapped, lunging up at her against the pressure of the hook at the hollow of his throat, eyes glittering. "I can practically _taste_ it." Selina bit her lip and he smirked lasciviously at her in acknowledgement of a point scored, sinking back onto the pillows. "So why don't you let me give you what you came here for. And you," He eyed the line where the matte black of her jacket gave way to golden cream, a little breathless now as her talon pressed into the skin of his throat and a tiny bead of red welled up, "You give me something in return."  
  
"I could just kill you." The claw scraped down his chest, pausing at each button on his very expensive dress shirt for only a moment before they popped, threads severed by the sharp metal. The beveled tip scraped along his skin, tantalizingly sharp, not quite breaking the surface; and he swallowed, staring at her with dark eyes.  
  
"But you won't." He asserted, sounding entirely confident despite the razor-sharp bauble hovering just beneath his navel, shirt open and chest naked and vulnerable. His effortless cool irritated her and she edged the claw beneath the snug edge of his pants, popping the button there as well. She rocked forward a bit as she did so, intending to glare down at him imposingly, but instead he only purred with approval.  
  
"You're fucking sick." A snarl twisted her full lips, glaring eyes like emeralds in the dark.  
  
"You want me." He laughed at her, cut on his face standing out livid and red in the splash of moonlight that highlighted them both.  
  
She stared at him for a long moment; probably weighing his moral merits against Bruce Wayne's and finding him lacking. He smirked. There were other arenas in which he could best a teenage boy, even one as objectively exceptional as the Son of Gotham. Seizing his momentary advantage, he inched long fingers up her thighs, pressing in, dragging her down into the dark with him - exactly where he wanted her to be.  
  
Selina hissed when his hands slid up to the crux of her, thumbs pressing hard on hot leather before sweeping back down in innocent retreat. She brought her hands down on his chest as if to push him away, though he could sink no further in any sense of the word. Her right hand on his lean flesh curled, fingers bending, nails and one wicked blade curving into yielding skin. She pulled, and left a narrow straight slash across his pectoral, beneath the collarbone. Her willful complicity burning through his blood like a match to gasoline, Zsasz tilted his head back and uttered a low groan.  
  
Selina studied him, panting, green irises dilated in the dark to a thin band around black devouring pupils. His throat was bared in an unprecedented display of vulnerability and the thought occurred to her - she could kill him now, puncture his carotid with a single swipe, watch him bleed out under her in a vital spray. The idea simultaneously nauseated her and sent a hot, shameful throb through her that she preferred to ignore; and she hastily discarded the thought. Playing rough was all well and good, but coldblooded murder was still beyond her sphere. _And yet..._ Her gaze remained fixated on the small wound she had caused, hips mobile in a restless grind that she seemed unaware of as her body craved satisfaction for the ache that had been growing since she set foot on the manor grounds. Zsasz watched her like the predator he was, pinned for the moment at a disadvantage but always on alert for the opportunity to sieze the upper hand.  
  
"Can I taste it?" She uttered abruptly, voice a jarring break in the silence and of an unsteady timbre. She bit her lip, still gazing at the welling red.  
  
Victor stared at her, hands encircling her thighs rather tight as he gritted his teeth at the wanton throb that made her words into an incomprehensible rush requiring translation. " _What?_ ”  
  
She bit her lip, her eyes narrowing in stubborn shame as she glanced to the side, lower lip full and pouting, jaw clamped down on a hasty backpedal. “I just... I don’t know, _okay?_ I just thought-”  
  
The assassin cut her off with a low hiss, eyes glittering slits in the dark. “Fuck. _Yes._ ”  
  
He tangled his hand roughly in those rowdy curls and she let him; pressing her lips to the cut and lapping at the scarlet, new-penny blood it wept. When her hot tongue touched his stinging flesh he bucked as if electrified, eyes rolling back in his skull. Zsasz ground into her roughly, the motion a punishing feel-good drag, and the little moan she uttered vibrated against his abused skin. He dragged her head up again, kissing her hard, the taste of his own blood on her lips making his balls ache and _fuck_ but it had been a long time since he'd felt real, gut-twisting _lust_. “God damn.”  
  
Selina raised her head, lips painted red and skin bleached white in the moonlight, eyes shut as she panted softly, restive atop him like a queen astride her conquest. Hands slid over her hips, curving around her ribs, hungry for the purchase of warm skin, but met only sleek black. "You're so fucking sexy in leather," he muttered, almost in spite of himself; and the girl swallowed, going tense at the unexpected praise - an ungentle reminder that she had come into his presence armed and dangerous.  
  
Fluid and irresistible as water, Victor swept her beneath his body, burying both hands in her hair, overwhelming her in her youth and naivete with the sheer size of him - all his height and solid weight and darkness. He settled between her thighs with a purr, hips tilting forward to grind into her sweetly, and Selina bit her lip against the dizzying rush, baring her throat in a mirror to his earlier surrender. He accepted the sacrifice, teeth sinking in with teasing pressure, drawing out a high whine to match the blooming amethyst. Smirking lips traced the fluttering line of her carotid, whispered sin into the fragile shell of her ear.  
  
"Selina... Baby..." He managed to make the plea sound iniquitous, as if the offering on his forked tongue dripped with both honey and poison. She could not help herself, regardless; already lost as long fingers toyed with the silver zipper fob of her suit. He flicked it like the little bell on a cat's collar, picturing her stealing the suit, red-faced, from the back of some BDSM parlor on the east end. Biting her lip in the reflection of her cracked but massive baroque mirror as she tried it on in her room and pictured the world's reaction. _His_ reaction. She shivered as he drew the zipper down, fingertips warm and dry along her sternum, like a reptile. Her skin was soft as butter beneath his touch and he swallowed, eyes black. "Tell me what you came here for." It sounded like a command, but in a tone that could have bent steel - or melted it.  
  
"V-victor?" Her voice was hesitant, but her hands gripping his open lapel were resolved, strong like fingers curling around a bullwhip. Hearing his given name on a woman's lips gave him a little charge, a shiver of the forbidden like a taser on his skin. In this room, people generally addressed him with more deference. "Please." She mumbled the word,  
full lips pouting, lashes lowered so she could not bear witness to her own shame. The man in question smirked, taking her jaw in long fingertips, raising her gaze to his.  
  
"Go on."  
  
She hissed, pulled him down by his lapels, but strong arms held him a few inches out of reach, tension sharp and humming. "Fuck me."  
  
Smirk intensifying, Zsasz pulled the zipper to its terminus below her navel, leaving Selina to gasp and attempt to cover herself. He batted her hands away, peeling the thin, supple leather back over her shoulders and leaving her arms pinned at her sides as his appreciative gaze deepened to pure avarice. Her hips flared neatly to a trim waist; her abdomen flat, strong, evidence of all her prowling and sneaking about on rooftops and into people's bedrooms. Young curves tempted him unmercifully, all golden cream and delicate dusky pink. He ignored her whimper of protest, her squirming only serving to buck unhelpfully against his hip as he buried his face between her breasts and nuzzled into the warm sweetness there. Long hands plucked, teased, gently massaged as he inhaled her scent, licking her skin and nibbling along the arc of her collarbone, taking his time. She had tumbled into his bed. He had all night to make it worth the trouble.  
  
He watched her struggle against the confining grip of the leather, taking a moment to contemplate how lovely she would look properly bound, a series of complicated knots twisted in red rope marking a path down her spine before splitting into a curve over that sweet little heart-shaped ass he so openly admired. Blinking to dispel the image and focus on the already more than adequate here-and-now, he brushed pale lips over one pert little rosebud, flickering his tongue like the serpent he was when she whimpered. Fingertips calloused by the care and frequent use of firearms plucked, gently rolled; touch sharpening just past the edge of pain before the warm heat of his palm enveloped fragile flesh and skimmed over milky curves, her back arching into his touch as she tried unsuccessfully to swallow the needy moan vibrating in her throat. He closed his lips over her nipple and sucked, threatening the reddened peak with the barest press of teeth, and she writhed, fingers twisting in the irreparably abused collar of his oxford.

"Please... I need..."  
  
It was not in Victor's nature to be magnanimous, but where his interests were concerned, he could be persuaded. He raised his head, not even bothering to hide his smug satisfaction as he freed her arms from the leather that bound them and peeled the suit down her legs, sliding the heeled boots off with a practiced, unhurried grace that infuriated her.  
  
"Can you stop?" Selina growled mutinously, raising her hips to ease the slide of leather. She kicked one leg out savagely, suit at last liberating her skin with a cool rush of air, a rustle and a snap. The movement left her bare save for black translucent stockings, matching panties and the weight of his gaze. He was amused to note the tiny pink pawprints embroidered into the dainty hem of the flimsy garment; and the matching blush in her cheeks.  
  
"Stop what?" He cocked one ivory brow over the crest of her hipbone at her, silky stockings gliding away beneath confident fingers.  
  
Selina glared back. "Looking so damn pleased with yourself." She huffed, and squirmed as he slid his hands up her thighs, over her hips, hooking his thumbs over the fabric of her panties and dragging them along on the way back down.  
  
"But I am pleased with myself."  
  
She flushed but set her jaw stubbornly and made no attempt to hide her nakedness, proud of her body if not of her choices. "Do something with your mouth other than smirking and making snarky comments."  
  
Victor tilted his head contemplatively, a faraway look in dark cerulean. "Hmm," he replied, pretending to ponder as he basked between her thighs. "Like this?" And flattening his tongue, he licked a broad, hungry stripe up the very center of her.  
  
Selina gasped, by instinct trying to back away though in hindsight she had goaded him into just such an audacity. Her hands twisted in the bedsheets as her heels dug in and she strained to escape the overload of abrupt sensation, but his grip on her thighs grew bruisingly tight. "I've been waiting for this, Selina." She felt his growl against her sensitive flesh with a tremble that shot up her spine. "Don't make me tie your ankles to the bedposts."  
  
Her right hand, bladed and braced against the headboard, tightened and the talon bit into the wood. Her left raised, hesitated for one heartbeat, then slipped over Victor's skull, the gesture almost a caress on his smooth skin. He huffed against the crux of her thigh, breath hot, expression almost dazed at the unexpected gentleness of the touch. Her fingertips pressed in beneath his occipital bone, coaxing and warm. "No... Don't stop."  
  
He devoured her, pursuit of her climax as single-minded and consuming as everything else about him. She panted in short breaths, covering her eyes as if to shield herself from the shocking intimacy of the act, the way he seemed to drown in her and thrive upon the privilege. She whined, fluttering her hands as if to wave him away, the crescendo of sensation pooling within her too intense, too unfamiliar to be borne out with her intended dignity. He refused the dismissal, instead only humming approvingly into her slick heat, tongue circling her clit, licking deep, hungry strokes into her core.  
  
Selina quaked, muscles of her thighs going taut; and squeezed her eyes shut tight as all the breath ran out of her in a rush, a great receding tide. She cried out helplessly, hand again curving over Victor's skin, pressing into the divot at the base of his skull as her hips bucked against his face. It was as if the storm of feeling poured from her in a flood, her body twitching of its own volition, Zsasz purring with sinful approval into her tormented flesh. "I- I...!" She panted incoherently, breaths restricted by her lungs' refusal to cooperate.  
  
Victor pulled back, the very picture of carnality, tongue lolling from his mouth like an animal's as he licked the wet sheen from lips reddened by the fervor of his efforts. He hummed appreciatively, dragging one sleeve of his open and irreparably abused shirt across his face, the deep and satisfied inhalation he uttered as he did so bordering on theatrical for the benefit of his captive audience. Selina watched him with eyes like saucers, trapped by the newfound heaviness in her limbs. Despite her most determined efforts, he consistently left her at a loss for words.  
  
Sensing that the garment's usefulness had run its course, Victor stripped off the oxford and tossed it carelessly aside - usually a man of great precision where his personal effects where concerned, he had more pressing matters to attend to. With the effortless grace of someone at home in his form and the space he occupies, he stretched out on the bed mere inches from Selina; the heat from her ravished body prickling over his skin. Yet he remained silent; eyes still and deep, and gently mocking.  
  
After a long beat Selina spoke, raising one hand palm up as if to weigh the silence and delay. "Well?"  
  
"Oh, was there something you wanted?" Zsasz asked, eyes glittering dangerously, the playful razor's edge of a smirk dancing around his mouth.  
  
For the first time since the evening began she looked at him, _really_ looked at him; eyes under heavy lashes roving over the unfamiliar sight. He rested on his side, torso lithe and defined, and pale as snow; one arm folded beneath him to hold him upright as he gazed back at her. She followed the line of scars down the lean muscle of his arm, angled rows of neat tally marks - a reminder that this man was a _killer_. Her breath came shallow through softly parted lips and she licked them, eyes flickering up to his face. He raised a brow at her, still as glass, only the fingertips of his free hand in motion as they trailed down his abdomen, drawing her eyes to the line of his dark trousers against white skin, silver snap stamped with a designer's crest gleaming dully as he brushed it, then paused.

Selina bit her lip, awash in heat, the flush that reddened her cheeks sweeping down to her collarbone. He was right, she reflected, as she bit her lip and rose, coltish and unsteady, to her knees. She _wanted._ It couldn't be helped. She couldn't pretend that this was entirely in his hands. She wasn't sure it ever had been.

She shifted on the soft sheets, looking anywhere but into his eyes, curls obscuring her expression as she slid her hands lightly up his arms, fingertips trembling until she pressed them firmly into his shoulders and pushed him flat on his back. Victor hid his surprise well but it was there nonetheless when she straddled his thighs, taking a breath and holding it as she skimmed her hands from his shoulders, down over his chest, that defined stomach...

Dizziness had started to overtake her when she felt his hands gently encircle her upper arms. The lightness of the touch startled her. "Breathe." He reminded quietly. She did so, and immediately felt better. More sure. His eyes as they looked up at her - she'd forgotten to avoid his gaze - all but glowed.

"Have you ever done this before?"

The question came from seemingly nowhere and it made her tense, her reply snappish. "I'm not going to bleed on your sheets, if that's what you're asking."

"It's not." He returned calmly, hands on her thighs, thumbs rubbing even, concentric circles; unconcerned with her tone. His uncanny ability to read between her lines unnerved her once again, and she looked down.  
  
"No. Not like this." She replied quietly.

Victor watched her steadily, body still, breathing relaxed. It was perhaps the one thing, aside from his obviously magnetic good looks, that she did not hate about him - in virtually any situation, he could be relied upon to remain unchanged. He was not one to overreact or allow emotion to cloud his judgment. The knowledge brought with it a certain sense of security.  
  
"But I'm fine." As she'd pondered, her hands dreamily acted of their own accord, gently pulling free the closure on his trousers and drawing the zipper down in minute increments; fingertips dipping beneath the fabric as she drew it away with the painstaking slowness of someone unwrapping a present, or a piece of forbidden fruit they would nevertheless like to taste. After a prolonged moment, the zipper finally hitting bottom, Zsasz bucked his hips - just a little; enough to snap her gaze up to his and interrupt her reverie.  
  
_Of course._ He was different, not dead. She quirked a little sideways grin at the knowledge that she'd been inadvertently tormenting him; turnabout being fair play and all that.  
  
Beneath her, pants open and shirtless and looking the most debauched she'd ever seen him, Victor's hooded eyes _blazed_.  
  
The motion was pure instinct, something she'd imagined alone in her hidden nest above the city, fingers exploring in secret what she would never give voice to in the clear light of day. Bending over him, heat sliding along his shaft in a needy glide that made him groan and her whine, she kissed him.  
  
He was good, she was surprised to discover, not too aggressive; not too patient, tongue easily finding the seam of her lips and licking, begging entry, fluttering into her mouth, teasing her own. Teeth nipped sharp at her full lower lip and then he sucked a little harder and she tasted copper with a yelp.  
  
"And you said you don't do torture." He muttered, grinding upwards into her heat, swollen head probing slick folds, and she gasped at the implication, the raw physical manifestation of his want.  
  
He gripped her hips to lift her up but she swatted them off. "Let me... I want to do it." And raising herself up on taut quivering thighs, she impaled herself upon him - maiden, self-sacrificed. True to her word, she was tight as a vise around his shaft and he hissed. She tensed above him, frowning in concentration, hands balled into fists. Nothing like the languid nymph he'd tasted earlier.  
  
"Relax," he uttered, tone somehow still even and measured despite all of it. "If I was going to hurt you, you'd know."

And another piece in her puzzling psyche clicked comfortably home.

It was really far easier, when she paused to think about it; dealing with one's enemies rather than friends. Friendship was messy; full of emotion and obligation, and love was no better. Great wrongs had been done to her and her people in the name of love; self-righteousness and conceit twisted up and couched in good intentions.

Something about Victor's calm, inquisitive stare, unapologetically alien to anything resembling normal human emotion; just seemed purer, somehow.

But she still felt stiff, uncertain; the heavy fullness inside her more unfamiliar than pleasurable. She bit her lip, tilting her head to hide her scowl at her own inexperience. Victor slid slow hands up her thighs, reminding her of more pressing matters, and the smallest thrust of his hips left her gasping and made all her decisions for her. "Maybe we..." She trailed off, looked away, and Victor forced himself through great strength of will to remain relaxed while waiting for the penny to drop. "Maybe you should. You know. Do it."  
  
He was a bad man. He could not help the mocking brow raised at her childish pronouncement. "To which of my many talents are you referring?"  
  
Selina bucked a little, knocking the wind out of him; and it was his turn to be reminded why, exactly, they were there. "Come on, Victor." She growled. "Don't make me beg."  
  
He smirked, purring as he gripped her hips and rolled them over, pressing her down into the soft bed beneath him. "Hmm, maybe later."  
  
But she was beyond hearing. The change in position hit depths and angles inside her that she'd been unaware of, and her nails pressed into his biceps as she let out a lilting sigh. Her slick heat fluttered gently around him and she shivered, nails pressing harder.  
  
"Please... Don't stop..."  
  
"Baby," he muttered, smirk like a sickle against her throat, "I'm a professional."  
  
And whatever he meant by that was lost to the crest of sensation as he found his rhythm; both chasing satisfaction with claws and teeth like the animals they were. She felt vulnerable, pinned beneath him like this - even more so when the hand not ruthlessly gripping her hip found her throat and none-too-gently squeezed. She wanted to fight; to buck and kick and scratch his eyes out... But the truth was as her lungs labored for air the look on his face made her feel molten inside, crumbling like a volcano into the surging sea. She bit her lip and moaned helplessly, a single tear sliding down the plane of her temple.  
  
Victor saw red; given over to the enjoyment of the act in a way he never allowed himself. She was as tight as the leather she'd been wearing and the sounds she made were positively criminal. He'd always known she belonged here; not gallivanting about rooftops and passing judgment on those down below with Gotham's supposed white knight. Down here, wallowing in the darkness and the ugliness and the sin. Down here with him.  
  
She spasmed, breath hitching then releasing in a high whine as her body clutched at him - her nails raked down his back, including the talon which left a long slash not dissimilar in placement from the most prominent whip scar she still bore. When the small blade parted his skin he turned to stone; a curse on his lips uttered into the hot curve of her neck, and he thought - for one brief irrational moment - that he might just die there, blind with lust and agony and balls-deep inside her and coming harder than he ever had in his life.  
  
But - perhaps surprisingly - neither died, and after a prolonged and languid afterglow during which both were blessed with the profound gift of being able to entirely ignore the presence of the other, they were left with unfriendly reality. Victor propped himself on his elbows to stare at her, lean muscle still failing to show the strain it should rightfully be feeling at this point. They lay nose to nose, Selina beneath him; both breathing softly, waiting for the other to make a move.

She spoke first. "That was a mistake-"  
  
"Oh?" Zsasz smiled slyly. "Stumbled into the rich part of town, tripped over the Penguin's security system and fell on my dick, is that it?" He chuckled, and she hated the way the sound created vibration, friction against her still sensitive skin. Hated the way she didn't mind it. "Relax, princess. I'm not going to tell Brucie. He'd probably challenge me to a duel." He rolled his eyes, bored just thinking about it, cold competence making Selina want to shiver. She squirmed instead.  
  
"Let me up."  
  
"Leaving so soon?" He smirked. "I'm sure the boss will have had them set another place for breakfast." At her outraged look, he shrugged, still totally nude and unconcerned. "Or prepped the crematorium. Maybe both."  
  
"Fuck, this was a mistake!" Selina hissed, hopping out of the massive bed and into her panties on one foot. Right as she successfully hooked them over the rounded curve of her hips, Victor grabbed her wrist; amusement dancing in dark eyes.  
  
"Probably. But who cares? Nothing you can do to change it now. Besides, the Eggs Benedict is ridiculous." His thumb rubbed small concentric circles on her wrist, the now-familiar pattern and gentle grip hypnotizing in a way that was becoming his trademark. She watched him cautiously, fluttering in her stomach showing behind her eyes.  
  
"Ridiculous?"  
  
"Ridiculous."  
  
Carefully, as if approaching an ostensibly tamed panther that any moment might turn and pounce; Selina sank once more into the plush decadence of the large four-poster, and suffered the light to be snuffed out.

 


End file.
